


The good, the mad and the baby

by selea



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A disaster waiting to happen, Custody, John saving the day, M/M, Parentlock, Sherlock being the usual child, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2183229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selea/pseuds/selea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“A child? Where did you get a child?!” John squealed alarmingly and quickly scanned the room for any infants lying around, or - God help Sherlock - their body parts.</p><p>Just when John though he had seen it all just by living with Sherlock, Mycroft brings a baby to their door. And it would be all fine, if they weren't meant to keep the baby boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is my first real fun fiction, so don't go too harsh on me ;) Also, I'm not a native speaker and the fic is not beta read, so I’m to blame for all mistakes. I would like to than my friend Ana for pointing out the worst mistakes and especially for the help in the search for the perfect idea ;)
> 
> The story is set somewhere between the THoB and TRF. I started writing this more than a year ago, before the third series came out, so there are some discrepancies in the story compared to the actual BBC canon, but to make the story work as originally intended, I couldn't change them. Also, the boy’s name. It was a lucky guess, but I liked the name too much to change it once the third series came out. 
> 
> Hope you like it!

He never wanted a child. Well, not exactly ‘not wanted’, since the thought never even crossed his mind. Not with The Work, not with his way of life and his addictions. There was just no way to fit a constantly demanding little creature between running from one crime scene to another and mutilating corpses at the morgue in the meantime. He just didn’t see himself carrying for someone. No, he was not even capable of, even if Mycroft made special effort that morning to point out that, despite his reluctance to admit it, he actually cared for John a lot. He dismissed him with an amused smirk and a remark about his weight he didn’t care to remember, but he was playing with the idea ever since and it started to scare the hell out of him. 

Having a child. 

Taking care of a child.

He never even held a child in his arms, not even for a case, for God’s sake! Mycroft lost it for good this time. 

He paced the length of the living room for a few minutes, and then retreated to the kitchen, where his morning experiment was waiting for him spread all over the horizontal surfaces of the room. He knew he should clean at least the ‘edible and non-contaminated things only’ surfaces before John returned, but since Mycroft left a few hours ago, he just couldn’t focus any more. So he settled to clean the smelly things before he stormed to his bedroom and change his black suit for a t-shirt and pyjama trousers, perfect for dramatically throwing oneself on the sofa and scrutinizing the celling. 

Previously he didn’t care. Why didn’t he care? He didn’t even care way actually. But why did he care now? What changed? Was it the sense of responsibility? Guilt? How are those things even supposed to feel like? How did carrying for someone feel like? To love someone? … No, that was way overhead for him. He didn’t care, sentiment was a weakness and he didn’t do weaknesses. He was just bored, that’s what this was. Boredom, which was apparently driving him crazy.

He grabbed his phone and sent a message to John, requesting his presence immediately, and another to Lestrade, pleading for at least a locked room, but had no lack on either side. He considered sending another message to his flatmate, threatening to burn the kitchen, but instead he just dropped his phone to the floor and curled on the sofa, sulking. Burning the kitchen definitely sounded less tedious and much quicker than cleaning it, but he was quite sure John wouldn’t approve. So he did neither. 

 

When John returned from the clinic a few hours later, he found Sherlock in a foetal position on the sofa, wrapped in a bundle with his blue dressing gown. He glanced around the room, happily acknowledging that no additional damage was done to the furniture and walls, but his smile wavered when he entered the kitchen to find Sherlock’s chemistry glassware scattered all around the place. He sighed defeatedly, cleaned enough surface to put down two mugs and turned on the kettle. 

The rattle in the kitchen woke Sherlock up. He left out a grunt and stretched his long limbs all over the place, before he halted in a not really comfortable position, face buried in the cushion. The recollection of Mycroft’s morning visit came back to his mind and he growled in displeasure. That feeling of unknown was getting even more annoying than boredom and he hated not knowing what to do. 

“So, what was so urgent?” asked John when he set the mug down in front of Sherlock and moved to his chair, sipping the perfectly prepared tea from his own cup. Sherlock turned to look at him, his annoyance written all over his face. It was sentiment, he didn’t deal with sentiment. This was John’s area. He’ll know what to do. 

“Have you ever wanted a child?”

John looked at him suspiciously, but he couldn’t find a trap in the question, so he answered honestly.

“Of course. I want to and I hope to do some day, I just … Well, there was not the right opportunity yet. Why?”

“Because I could get one, but I won’t if you don’t like them or would move out, which is not an acceptable option. Taking this into account, do you want one?” stormed out of Sherlock as he finally turned his sharp gaze to the mug on the table, but didn’t move to get it. 

“What are you talking about? A child? Where did you get a child?!” John squealed alarmingly and quickly scanned the room for any infants lying around, or - God help Sherlock - their body parts. 

“You’re a doctor, do I really have to tell you the story about the birds and the bees?” This was getting even more annoying than predicted. 

“It’s your child?” John almost choked on the air alone. 

“Yes, of course it’s mine.”

“You’re a father?!”

“Brilliant deduction, John,” Sherlock said, accompanied by his ‘you’re an idiot’ stare and finally got on his elbows to retrieve the cup from the table. For a long moment John just stared at him in disbelief. He run a hand over his face and looked through the window to make some sense of the confusion and anxiety he felt. Or at least tried to …

“How is this even possible?” he asked after a few deep breaths, turning back towards Sherlock, who struggled into a sitting position and raised a brow. 

“Are you setting a new record in the frequency of stupid questions?”

“I mean, we’ve been flatmates for two years and you’ve never mentioned a child. Or a woman you fancied. Or anything involving a relationship with something else than your work,” John cried desperately. He should have felt betrayed, but this was Sherlock they were talking about. 

“Boring,” Sherlock hummed, bringing his knees up to his chest.

“Christ … How old is he? She?”

“He. Fifteen months.”

“Oh God … So you basically fathered this child while we were already living together and I didn’t notice anything?”

“Theoretically.”

“Care to explain?” John demanded, the initial shock slowly leaving room to offence.

“They wanted an heir.”

“Who?”

“Emma’s parents.”

“Emma?”

“My wife.”

“Your what?!”

“John …”

“I mean … Oh God… Is there something else I should know?!” 

Sherlock grimaced in his typical ‘I did something not good and I know it’ way and he looked away.

“What?!” John exploded anxiously and awkwardly adjusted his siting position to something even less comfortable.

“I used your cereal bowl for an experiment. Nothing toxic though.”

“You used … No, no, Sherlock, focus!”

“She died,” he eventually murmured with an even voice like he was talking about last year’s snow on Alaska. 

“Who?”

“Emma. Three days ago in a car accident. I have priority over the custody,” Sherlock said and looked a bit impatiently at John, who just kept staring at him with a mixture of shock, horror and disbelief.

“I’m sorry …” 

“No need,” he cut him off, still drilling into him with his gaze.

“Sherlock, your wife died!”

“Theoretically.”

“Oh God …” John lowered his head in his hands in utter disbelief. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. What would you do?”

“Sherlock, you’re his father!” John exclaimed and finally lifted his head, his face turning slightly pink. 

“Yes, we already established that. What about it?”

John glared at him and when anger started disfiguring his face, he abruptly stood up and took his jacket.

“I need to get some air.”

 

He returned one hour later with two grocery bags from Tesco. Sherlock was standing by the window with his violin under his chin. He was playing, but there was no melody, just some sort of sound chaos that hurt in the ears. John brought the bags to the kitchen and barely contained a sigh. The pandemonium hadn’t moved an inch, so he set the bags on the floor to deal with them later. He switched the kettle on and searched the cupboard for two more clean mugs.

“I refuse to believe you’re such a heartless arse, so please, make the effort and explain,” John said when he walked into the living room with a tray with two plates with Thai take away and two cups of tea, interrupting Sherlock’s musical masterpiece. “For how long were you married?”

Sherlock looked at him over his shoulder with an annoyed expression and put the violin safely away in its case.

“Nine years, ten months aaaand … twelve days.”

“Ten years? Why? You obviously didn’t care about her,” John said calmly and took his plate and cutlery from the tray. “Take your plate, you have to eat at least something today.”

“It was an arranged marriage,” Sherlock said, sat down on the sofa and suspiciously eyed the noodles on the remaining plate.

“Arranged … I thought England was over that.”

“England yes, but mine, and at least two other families apparently not,” Sherlock murmured and finally took the plate in his lap.

“Mycroft, too?”

“Married for fifteen years, a daughter of twelve and a nine year old son,” Sherlock said, tinkering around his plate before taking the first bite.

“Never heard of any of this,” John murmured more to himself than to Sherlock, a bit of surprise escaping with his words. “He does have a wedding ring, though, now that I think about it.”

“He does all his husbands’ duties, but he hardly cares about her. He likes his children though, so he avoids putting them in danger by exposing them too much. Ah, the delights of occupying a minor position in the British government,” Sherlock smirked.

“Why did you go through with the marriage? I’ve never seen you bend to the will of others before.”

“Apparently, if you have friends high enough, the signature of the husband is not required.”

“Christ. So, … you just slept with her once or twice, to be sure, and that was it?”

“I didn’t sleep with her,” Sherlock grimaced with disgust. “Artificial insemination. Gay, remember? I bet they didn’t think of that when they arranged everything twenty years ago.”

Now that explained the theoretically. No wonder he didn’t want to do anything with her and avoided his own family as much as possible. They probably resented him, too, to make things worse. 

“Have you even met her?”

“Twice, shortly before the ‘marriage’.” He gestured the quotation marks with his free hand, not really taking his attention from the quickly disappearing noodles before him. “She was dull.”

“Of course she was ... What about your son? Have you met him? What’s his name anyway?” John kept the questions flowing, his food completely forgotten. 

“William. And, no, I haven’t. They sent me a picture when he was born, if that counts.”

“Can I see it?”

“It’s in the inbox, if I still have it. It’s a baby like any other, boring,” Sherlock shrugged and returned his now empty plate to the tray in exchange for the mug. John sighed and leaned back in his chair. Although he understood, he didn’t really approve. It wasn’t William’s fault. 

He ate quietly, going through what Sherlock told him, while Sherlock retreated to the kitchen and John could hear the clattering of the laboratory equipment. He never thought of Sherlock being a father, he couldn’t even imagine it now. Picturing this annoying git hovering around the corpse while trying to keep the baby version of himself away from it brought a smile on his face, and he wished Sherlock would take the time and search his inbox for that picture. He was quite sure the detective would never allow himself a boring distraction like a baby. And he certainly couldn’t force him, not that it would be a wise decision in the first place. That is, if there actually was a child in the first place. It sounded a lot like a social experiment of a bored detective and one could never be too sure with Sherlock. 

“Have you decided yet?” he asked when he finished his share of the take away and put his plate back on the tray. The rattle in the kitchen stopped for a moment.

“No.”

“No as in I’m not taking him or as I haven’t decided yet?”

“Haven’t decided,” Sherlock shouted over the clatter of the plastic boxes in which he stored his chemistry set.

“It’s not an experiment, you know. It’s a living person,” John said, trying to prevent the wrong decision based on the even worse idea Sherlock would sooner or later come to. “Actually, no, scratch that. William is not just a person; he’s your family, so you can’t be an arsehole towards him.”

“Mycroft is my family, too,” Sherlock pointed out.

“He’s just a child, he cannot defend himself against your verbal abuse, and more importantly, you’re his father, you’ll have to be a good example for him.”

“That’s tedious,” Sherlock hissed before he disappeared into his bedroom with the large box in his arms. John triumphantly retrieved the tray to the now much cleaner kitchen and started washing the dishes.

“Do you think it’s difficult to raise a child?” Sherlock asked when he returned and leaned on the kitchen doorway, staring at John with a strange expression.

“I don’t know, never had one. But it’s a living thing with a mind of its own and being only a child he certainly won’t adjust his needs to your demands like I do,” John smirked and put the washed plates against the wall to drain.

“I can’t arrange a murder schedule,” Sherlock protested, sounding almost offended over the stupidity of John’s request.

“Then I won’t let you take the child,” John said, knowing full well he had no word in this, but stood his ground anyway. He confidently strode past the astonished detective, who immediately followed him back to the living room. 

“I’m not giving up my work!” he almost cried and threw himself on the sofa while John comfortably sank into his chair and picked up the newspaper.

“I know,” he said and spread the newspaper, elegantly finishing the conversation and leaving Sherlock to twiddle with his last remarks. They sat there in silence and eventually Sherlock picked up a book about flesh eating bugs. Half past eleven John retired to his bedroom as he always did while Sherlock remained engrossed in his book almost till five in the morning. The matter of his child did not cross his mind again.


	2. Chapter 2

Two days later, when John returned from the clinic in the afternoon, he found Sherlock sitting on the floor of their living room, surrounded by a number of different toys, looking like the most miserable puppy in the world. Mycroft was sitting in Sherlock’s armchair, amusing himself watching his brother suffer while leisurely sipping tea. It should have stricken him as suspicious immediately.

“John! How nice of you to join us,” said Mycroft and his half fake smile extended almost up to his ears.

“Reminding him of his childhood traumas?” John chuckled, hanging his jacked on the stand behind the door.

“No, actually …” Mycroft begun, but was cut off by a squeaky sound of a toy coming from behind his chair, followed by a silent thud, some more rattle and a high pitched whoop of happiness. John froze and silently watched a baby boy wobble from behind the chair, carrying a plush blue cube with numbers on each surface.

“May I present you my nephew, William,” Mycroft said proudly, gesturing to the little boy who cautiously looked from his uncle to Sherlock, and then those big, curious eyes stopped to stare at John.

“He wasn’t joking, there actually is a child,” John murmured to himself as he stared at the boy. He had a sharp gaze and green blue eyes just like his father, his hair was curly, but of a much lighter shade of brown. Emma must have been blue eyed and blond, John thought.

“Hey, little fella,” John said with a voice as sweet as he managed and crouched on the floor to properly greet the boy, but William immediately grimaced, ready to burst into tears. He turned and shambled towards Mycroft as quickly as he could, hid behind his leg and cautiously peeped towards John.

“He’s a bit … shy around strangers,” Mycroft said, gently placing a hand on William’s head. “But he’s just as curious as his father, if you start playing with his toys, he’ll come to you eventually. Strange though … this doesn’t work for Sherlock.”

“Why am I not surprised?” John smiled, looking at the nervous detective. He had never seen him like that; with tens shoulders, twitchy and ready to have a panic attack. “Try to relax a bit, you’re scarring him. You’re scarring me too, actually.”

Sherlock looked at him in disbelief as John sat down in the middle of the toy field and started fiddling with some plastic building blocks in front of him. “He’s not going to attack you, you know.”

“He’s so … small,” Sherlock murmured for a lack of better characterization of his confusion and let go of the staffed animal he was holding this whole time.

“He was much smaller a year ago,” John pointed out, triggering another frown from his flatmate, and turned back towards the child. William was still hiding behind Mycroft’s leg, but he didn’t seem scared any more. Instead, he was analysing him and John could almost make out the shape of his strong cheek bones, still hidden under round cheeks so typical of babies his age. He was rather big for a one year old, but so was his father and John couldn’t help but wonder how Sherlock looked like all those years ago.

“So, what’s the deal?” John eventually cut into the silence and looked up at Mycroft.

“As his biological father, Emma’s husband and eventually also his legal guardian, Sherlock has priority over his custody. Of course, his wife’s parents, the Hughes, want to take the boy in and they made it quite clear they’ll use all means to achieve this, exploiting in the first line Sherlock’s old diagnosis, his past addictions and his disinterest in William’s existence so far, but my lawyers managed to make a deal before all this would go to the court. Sherlock has one week as of today to take the child in, otherwise they irrevocably claim his guardianship. Of course, he can change his mind anytime and they’ll take the child back, same goes if they catch Sherlock using again or exposing William to any immediate danger. I assume they are quite confident Sherlock won’t want him, otherwise they would never have agreed to this,” Mycroft explained with a bit of reluctance. He inconspicuously moved his leg a bit to lure William out of his hiding place. The boy took a few steps forward, sat on the floor next to the nearest toy and eyed both Sherlock and John with a bit more interest than the first time. Sherlock forced out a supposed-to-be-relaxing exhale and picked up the stuffed animal again, not really paying any attention to his son or the rest of the surroundings.

“Apparently we all know how Sherlock feels about this, so why did you go through all this trouble to ensure him a chance?” John asked, placing the remaining block on top of the tower he built. He winked at William and poked the tower just strong enough to collapse it, raising some more curiosity from the boy.

“Well,” Mycroft murmured, looking away for a moment, searching for the right words, “let’s just say they are not exactly the kind of people I would ever leave my children with.”

John honoured Mycroft with a raised brow, but immediately returned his attention to the boy. William crawled a bit closer, sat down two feet from him and started examining the remains of the block tower.

“As far as I heard, Emma and her brother were raised by an army of nannies and servants, sent to a private boarding school aged seven and treated more or less like property till the moment they moved out and to a certain extent also later, as you can see. They are thoughtless, cold and detached, a whole another level of psychopaths compared to Sherlock, and I’ve been quietly trying to dig some dirt out of their business for some time now, but they are careful. I would also like to point out this arranged marriage custom, but since our family did the same, not that I support the idea, you’ll have to draw your own conclusions on this one,” Mycroft finished with a sight.

“Why do I have the feeling that you left the spicy things out of the story?” John smirked and started rebuilding the block tower, while William carefully followed his every move.

“They are still William’s grandparents,” Mycroft said in apology. When the block tower was finished, John angled away from it and watched with a wide smile how William got to his feet, made the two remaining steps and sent the tower into pieces with a careless swept of his hand. Bright child laughter filled the room, waking Sherlock from his daze.

“That’s blackmail,” he murmured, turning the attention of all three men in the room to himself.

“You’re free to say no,” Mycroft pointed out calmly, but secretly pleased with Sherlock’s reaction.

“And live on knowing my son is in their ludicrous hands?” Sherlock sounded almost offended, and the smile on Mycroft’s face widened a bit. It was the first time Sherlock referred to William as his son on his own after imposing the word on him through the whole morning.

“They raised Emma, who was raising William until now. You didn’t mind that? Since when do you share, Sherlock?”

“Exactly, they raised her to be boring and dull. My son is not going to be an idiot!” Sherlock exclaimed a bit irritated and started crumpling the stuffed animal, which finally got William’s attention.

“May I assume you’re willing to try?” asked Mycroft. Sherlock felt still for a moment, and then slowly looked at John, his face skewed by fear and insecurity. A surprised gasp escaped John at the sight, but he quickly nodded assertively and Sherlock just had to shake his head in disbelief. Apparently, their conversation two days ago made quite an impression.

“Which is more important to you?” John asked after a moment of suffocating silence and gave a helping lift to William, who was straggling to get on his feet while holding one plastic block in each hand. The boy run towards his father and stopped right before him, looking up into his carefully blank face. He offered the green building block to Sherlock, while keeping the red one secure in his left hand, pressed to his chest.

“Thank you,” murmured Sherlock in surprise, gently accepting the offered toy, while William took the staffed animal from Sherlock’s other hand. He stared at the block in his hand for a moment and then his unfocused gaze absently followed William back to John’s side. His son dropped on his behind in front of the doctor and started piling up the blocks John was handing him.

“I think that settles it,” Mycroft said with a supressed smile and turned to John. “Could I have a minute of your time?”

“You’re concerned,” John said bluntly when they retreated into the privacy of the kitchen, leaving Sherlock and William to look after each other.

“Of course, I worry about them constantly,” said Mycroft, a bit taken aback. “I’m rather confident Sherlock won’t relapse, he’s been stable lately, but it’s the second demand I’m worried about. He may be a genius, but I’m persistently surprised by his lack of social skills and common sense, particularly regarding dangerous situations. They will both grow to swirl around them, but in the meantime, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask _you_ to make sure nothing bad happens to either of them.”

“So basically I’ll have two children to look after now,” John laughed shallowly and looked over his shoulder to the living room.

“You’ve been doing an excellent job with Sherlock so far, William will be a piece of cake for you, I’m sure,” Mycroft smiled, a bit of guilt showing up near his eyes. “It will be good for him to finally have some responsibility, too. He’ll learn the basics quickly and he certainly won’t expose him to danger intentionally, but please, keep an eye on him just to be on the safe side.”

“Yes, yes of course,” said John firmly and turned towards the living room.

“One more thing,” Mycroft stopped him, “do try to make him say yes by the end of the week.”

 _That_ was one unsettling request he was certainly going to ignore. To start with, he wasn’t even sure yet that this was a good idea in the first placce, not to mention that things like bullying Sherlock into anything happened  only in some strange parallel universes anyway, if at all.

 

John allowed himself exactly five minutes to sit in his chair and go over the events of the last hour in his mind. Mycroft had left them with William, his army of toys, a rather thick baby user manual, supplemented with a comprehensive list of boy’s habits and whims, and a promise to have his minions deliver the rest of William’s stuff by the end of the evening. Yes, he said he wanted a child and he still stood by it, but he always imagined he would have those nine months to adjust to the idea, do some reading and mentally prepare himself for the lack of sleep. Well, he wasn’t practically his father, but knowing Sherlock, William was as good as his, at least concerning his care.

With a slightly trembling sigh he glanced at the two Holmes boys. It took him almost half an hour to calm William down after Mycroft left without him, while Sherlock, on the other hand, was still sitting on the floor and absently watching William play. It really got to him and John secretly congratulated William for being the first to bring the detective so far in the open. Sherlock was tossing the green building block around his large hand until he suddenly grabbed it and jumped to his feet with the typical _extremely-intriguing-case_ fire in his eyes.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to clean the bedroom,” he declared and marched to his bedroom. John allowed himself a smile and picked up the manual Mycroft left them. He relaxed a bit when he found the instructions for practically everything: from eating and sleeping schedules to graphic instructions on how to change a nappy or do a bath. Mycroft also included copies of his medical records and John happily noted that the boy was completely healthy and regularly vaccinated. And of course the birth certificate. _William Erion Holmes_. Strange names were apparently hereditary, too.

“They read him stories before bed,” John said loudly so Sherlock could hear him in the bedroom. “And he hates the pram, we’ll have to carry him around.”

“He can walk,” Sherlock said and John could almost hear the _obviously_ that wasn’t said out aloud.

“He probably learned to walk a few months ago, you can’t expect him to run after you around London,” John said, browsing through the manual, but still keeping an eye on the boy who was exploring the room a bit too thoroughly for his taste. “And we’ll have to clean all the surfaces he can reach.”

“Tedious.” Sherlock emerged from his room with a big cardboard box full of random stuff and carried it down to the doorway. Their flat was practically a time bomb waiting to go _kaboom_.

“You have a lumber room in there, don’t you?” John teased, but Sherlock just gave him a pointed look on his way back to his bedroom. Half an hour later, he returned to his sitting position on the floor, clearly annoyed. While he watched William play for a few minutes, his expression changed from irritated to neutral until it settled on anxious. People usually had some reaction to his personality, good or bad, but being ignored was something he wasn’t used to. It looked like the world’s proudest sociopath wanted to be accepted for the first time, but didn’t really want the world to know that yet.

“Call him,” John whispered and gestured towards William.

“What for?” Sherlock said dismissingly and picked himself up again. “He wouldn’t come.”

“You don’t know that,” John protested, but Sherlock already dashed back into his bedroom.

“Great,” murmured John to himself. He just achieved the opposite of what he intended.

In less than ten minutes, their living room was full of Mycroft’s men, piling up box after box. They set the cot and a mountain of nappies in Sherlock’s bedroom and enough baby food to feed an army in the kitchen. There were tons of colourful clothes, blankets, picture books and even more toys, a baby carrier, a not much used pram and a changing table which Sherlock refused to take before they even managed to get it in the flat. Presumably, he will teach William to use the loo in the next few days, despite John’s protests. 

“I’ll have to clean the wardrobe, too,” Sherlock made a conclusion he didn’t sound happy about and returned to his bedroom. John took William with him to the kitchen, determined to prepare something to eat for all three of them.

In little less than one hour, dinner was served and most of the boxes were unpacked or set aside for later, or rather, based on their way too colourful content for Sherlock’s taste, probably never. By that time, both Holmes’ boys were tired or annoyed, but John was mentally prepared to force food down both their throats.

Sherlock sat on his chair in the kitchen, exhaling louder than necessary and John took the moment of his distraction to shove the boy in his arms. The detective immediately held him back towards John, who pointedly ignored him and sat behind the table. Sherlock kept looking at John with a desperate gaze that could almost be described as freaked out.

“I’ll break him.”

“He’s not that fragile,” said John, fully focused on his dinner. “You’ve never held him before?”

“No… what should I ...”

“You really don’t know a thing about babies, do you?” John smiled, finally looking up at Sherlock who was still holding William away from himself like he was poisonous. The boy started to get annoyed hanging in mid-air and not being part of what was going on.

“Don’t rush with dinner, you can put that on your blog later,” hissed Sherlock and John smiled triumphantly. The detective carefully lowered William in his lap while glancing at John in random intervals for any signs of _‘not good’_. The boy settled himself more comfortably, not really concerned about the sitting arrangements. Instead, he immediately seized a handful of potatoes from Sherlock’s plate and stuffed it in his mouth.

“Well, this will be easier than I thought,” said John and moved William’s plate closer to the boy. By the time they finished eating, Sherlock and William were covered in pieces of vegetables and John tried to avoid glancing at the floor around them. William, tired as he was, transferred some of it even to his forehead when rubbing his eyes. He was also considerably more vocal and restless than he was during the day.

“I think a change of nappy is in order, and then straight to bed,” John announced and started cleaning the table, while Sherlock tried to keep William busy with a crinkly paper, to postpone the _I’m-to-tired-to-deal-with-the-world_ crying session for as long as possible.  

“So, how are we going to change him, since you declined the changing table?” John asked, when he finished cleaning the _after dinner battlefield_ and laid the baby user guide in front of Sherlock.

“On this table, of course,” Sherlock announced. “We’ll cover it with a blanket, it should do the trick.”

John sighed defeatedly and left to retrieve a blanket. Sherlock shuffled through the manual and looked at the graphic instructions. They had Mycroft’s smirk all over them. He intended to have John change the nappy, but not anymore. He would prove his brother wrong. How hard could it be if all idiots around the world could do it?

When John returned with a blanket, a package of baby wipes and a fresh nappy, Sherlock quickly arranged the table and lay William on his back. The boy immediately started kicking and crying and Sherlock had a hell of a struggle just to get him out of his clothes. Sherlock removed the old nappy and, holding it with two fingers, placed it cautiously on the chair, his expression carefully blank. He wiped everything with surgical precision and finally, contented with the result, picked his still naked son up and held him on his eyelevel.

“He’s proportions are not right,” he commented, holding the baby a bit closer to take a better look.

“He’s a baby, of course his proportions are not those of an adult,” John smiled and leaned on the kitchen counter, almost a bit proud of Sherlock’s achievement. But that was all he managed to say before William wriggled and started weeing directly on Sherlock’s white silk shirt. Sherlock shrieked and jumped, putting the now laughing child back on the table.

The initial shock was quickly replaced by supressed giggles until John started almost crying from laughter. In the meantime, he somehow managed to grab a kitchen towel and give it to the completely confused Sherlock.

“Please, don’t tell Mycroft,” cried the detective and started wiping his shirt with not much effect. John bursted into laughter again, interrupted by muffled _sorries_ he didn’t mean at all, until his legs gave up and he sank on the chair beside Sherlock.

The room got quiet in a split of second.

“Oh, God, no,” he whined and carefully got back on his feet to look at the nappy on the chair in disbelief. Now it was Sherlock’s time to chuckle. John looked at his flatmate, still holding the towel against his chest, and started giggling again.

“We’re covered in poop, pee and food. I think it’s official.”

 

When all three of them were freshly changed, Sherlock started to clean the kitchen using the now empty boxes to store his equipment and the experiments that could wait for a better time. John searched one of the not yet unpacked boxes for a story book and retreated to Sherlock’s bedroom. William was so tired he alternated between purposeless crying and baby gibberish with occasional actual words between them, like _mum_ and _read_. John allowed himself a sad smile and made a mental note to teach the boy the word _dad_ as soon as possible.

The moment he laid him in the cot, though, the hell broke loose. He was tired, but apparently not tired enough not to cry his eyes out and struggle himself up in the sitting position every time John tried to lay him down. John waited ten minutes, talking to him and trying to calm him down, but the boy stopped sobbing only when he picked him up again.

“How the hell did Emma do this?”

He walked around the room for almost half an hour before the boy fell asleep, but the moment he lowered him back into the cot, he woke up immediately.

“Stubborn as your father, are you,” John murmured and picked him back up. He was a bit tired of pacing the room and temptingly eyed Sherlock’s bed. It seemed like a big invasion of his flatmate’s privacy, but this was Sherlock, he probably had a corpse or two stored in the bed at some point. So he took the liberty to draw back the duvet, lean the pillow a bit higher against the headboard and settled himself against it. He lay William down in the middle of the bed, determined to ignore his whims from that point on, and started reading the story book. William kept himself busy by tinkering around the bed, but eventually he calmed down and crawled besides John. He started babbling and pointing to certain objects in the illustrations until he gradually fell asleep. John waited a few more minutes to be sure, and then carefully removed himself from the bed. William woke up once more, but he was too far gone to start the rebellion again. So John triumphantly tugged him in and exited the room on his tiptoes.

He sank in his armchair, leaned his head back against the rest and exhaled heavily.

“I want a recliner,” he murmured, “and a hot masseuse.”

“Tea?” Sherlock offered from the kitchen.

“Yes, tea would be nice, too, thank you.”

Sherlock put the kettle on, but before the water boiled, John joined him in the kitchen. He checked the chair before he sat down, in much better mood already. The kitchen looked considerably cleaner, all sharp and breakable objects were put away from the border of the kitchen counter or high enough not even John could reach them. The jars with various body parts in formaldehyde disappeared along with mould cultures and his collection of acids and bases.

“Did you clean the fridge too?” John asked when Sherlock handed him his mug. “Thank you.”

“No, he can’t open it so there’s no problem.”

“Sherlock, that stuff is contagious, it spoils the food and God help us if we mistake the body parts for something edible. I can handle an indigestion and food poisoning from time to time, but we’re not going to feed any of it to a baby,” John said decisively, gesturing to Sherlock to start acting on it. Sherlock glared at him for a moment, considering the alternatives.

“If I put everything on the lowermost shelf …”

“No, fridge is only for food from now on. We should also clean it thoroughly first thing in the morning. And the same goes for the freezer.”

“What if I …”

“No.”

“John, I haven’t even …”

“No.”

“Fine,” hissed Sherlock eventually, grabbed a half empty trash bag and reluctantly started empting the fridge. As it turned out, the food was the minority of its content.

“And of course, no infectious, explosive, radioactive, flammable or volatile stuff anywhere in the flat,” John added, exploiting Sherlock’s temporally willingness to cooperate.

“Do you expect me to experiment with water?”

“Sounds perfect!”

Sherlock looked sorry already.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go ... Remember, never leave a child unattended, despite his age ;)

Reality hit him abruptly the next morning only after he descended into a living room full of toys.

_Right, they had a kid now._

The flat was quiet, but if he listened carefully, he could hear the soft murmur of a child’s voice. He knocked softly on the door of Sherlock’s bedroom, but there was no reply, so he opened it a crack and peeked in. Just in case, to make sure that everything was under control.

The room was dark, illuminated only by the low light coming from the partially covered window. Sherlock was sprawled on his side of the bed, his eyes open but unfocused. William was sitting next to him, playing with the book Sherlock was reading during the night and apparently talking to himself, since his father got lost in his mind palace.

“Everything alright?”

“He won’t shut up,” Sherlock murmured and pulled a pillow over his face. “I can’t think like this!”

John smiled. “Give your brain some rest,” he said and leaned over Sherlock to pick William up. “I’ll prepare the breakfast, you change the nappy. And don’t even think about complaining, since I’m giving you priority over the bathroom.”

When the balance to the universe was restored twenty minutes and a cup of tea later, John reluctantly got ready to go to the clinic. The idea to call in sick didn’t really cross his mind the previous evening and now he had to leave Sherlock alone with his son, even if it was just for a few hours. Leaving Sherlock on his _own_ was a risk high enough as it was.

“Good morning, boys!” a familiar voice echoed from the stairs, soon followed by its lovely owner, “Sherlock, the mess you’ve … Oh, my goodness, a baby!”

John abruptly turned to find Mrs Hudson standing on the doorway, looking down at William. She had a plate of biscuits in her hand and for a moment he was sure she would drop it, but then the surprise left room for utter joy and excitement. “Such a beautiful boy!”

As he opened his mouth to reply, John felt the awkwardness of the moment. They just moved in a child without saying a word to their landlady.

“Mrs Hudson …”

“Mrs Hudson, this is my son, William. He’ll be living here with us from now on, if you don’t mind of course,” Sherlock jumped in and John mentally cursed at how directly he dropped the big news on their landlady. She stared at Sherlock for a moment, eyes wide in surprise, before she regained her ability to speak.

“No, no, of course I don’t mind, I adore children! But Sherlock, I don’t understand …”

Sherlock reluctantly sat upright on the sofa and John took the opportunity to excuse himself. If it felt that awkward explaining the story to Mrs Hudson, he preferred not to even imagine how they’re going to break the news to Scotland Yard. And William wasn’t even his child to begin with. What the hell was he so afraid of?

It took Sherlock half an hour and all of his patience to illustrate to Mrs Hudson the irony of his marital life. He hated repeating himself, it was tedious. He’ll let John do the talking the next time. But for now, Mrs Hudson seemed to be satisfied with the explanation.

“Poor little angel, losing his mother at such young age. Is there something I can do to help? I could cook your lunches, if you like, until you settle down with the new responsibilities,” Mrs Hudson kindly offered, a bit reserved. Although Sherlock explained her the ritual to get William’s trust and she did everything by the letter, William didn’t seem to like her. He wasn’t scared, but didn’t go to her either, which Sherlock found utterly strange and disappointing. All his hopes of leaving William in her care when going to the crime scenes went flying out of the window.

“That would be lovely, thank you, Mrs Hudson.”

“But just for a while, not your housekeeper,” she said cheerfully and got to her feet. She glanced at William one more time, playing by his father’s side, and headed for the door. “Oh my, I have three boys now!”

When the sound of her steps died out, he turned back at his son who was gathering toys at his feet.

“John said I should look after you, clean the refrigerator and prepare lunch. Since Mrs Hudson will take care of the cooking, perhaps I could teach you a trick or two to keep yourself busy until I clean the kitchen …” Sherlock trailed off. William looked up at him, judgingly, and clambered to his feet. He started passing the toys from the floor to Sherlock’s lap, babbling something on the way, which Sherlock hoped he wasn’t supposed to understand. “Preferably not by playing with you in person.”

He glanced around the living room until his gaze felt on the magnifying glass on his desk. It was a sunny morning for a change and a rather clear ray of light illuminated the room. It seemed like the perfect trick to start his science education.

“Have you ever light a fire with a magnifying glass? Of course you haven’t.”

He removed the toys from his lap with a swift move, stepped over William and grabbed the magnifying glass, a plate in the kitchen and tore a page from one of John’s old newspapers in the recycling box. He sat on the floor in the middle of the light path and William immediately joined him, curious over the rustling of the paper. Sherlock placed the plate on the floor and the crinkly paper on top of it.

“I’ll show you first,” Sherlock said when he blocked William from grabbing the paper. He moved the magnifying glass in the ray of sunlight and focused the bent light to a spot on top of the paper surface. Immediately, the paper started kindling and before long it ignited. William started laughing when the flame got bigger and without a warning, leaned forward to grab it.

“No!” Sherlock screamed and grabbed his son’s arm just in time, burning the hair on his arm in the process. William burst into tears at his scream, but as nothing else bad happened, he soon resorted to sobbing and giving Sherlock offended looks.

“This was a bit not good, was it?” he murmured, as he waited for the fire to die out. He cleaned the ashes like nothing had happened and started searching the flat for another gadget to occupy William with. Eventually he came up with a plastic container with a neck just narrow enough to pass a small ball in it. He first gave William the ball, and when it caught his interest, he threw the ball into the bottle. William reached into the bottle and grabbed it, but the bottle neck was to narrow and he couldn’t extract the hand while holding the ball. He released the ball, extracted the hand and alternatingly eyed his hand and the ball in the bottle, before trying again.

“Here you go, busy for an hour,” Sherlock said with relief. He watched William for another minute to make sure there was nothing dangerous about his contraption and then retreated to the kitchen to continue the heart breaking task he started the previous evening. He took a plastic bag and started filling it with frozen body parts and other remains of his experiments. He would have to bring everything back to Bart’s for destruction. Enough people suspected him of being the murderer in various crimes he was investigating, finding body parts in his trash bin certainly wouldn’t help him shut them up quicker.

It turned out the freezer only contained his experiments and a plastic bag with two stakes frozen to the bottom wall that could easily have come from some already extinct animal, judging from the date on the bag. He turned the freezer off to defreeze it and continued with the refrigerator. He already threw away all nonedible stuff the previous evening, so all he had to do now was to moved the remaining food to the uppermost shelf and clean the rest.

Until he found a flask of blood hidden in the back he apparently mistook for tomato juice the previous day. It was a bit old, but he could at least get some preliminary results for his experiments on the effect of different cleaning agents on decomposition of fresh blood. Well, four days old blood.

An almost evil smile spread over Sherlock’s face as he put the flask on the kitchen counter. It was his last experiment and if he worked quickly enough, John wouldn’t even notice. Brilliant. But first he had to warm it to thirty-seven degrees.

He placed the bottle in a pot half filled with water and turned the stove on. He only had to warm it a bit, so a few minutes should do the trick. In the meantime, he returned his attention to the refrigerator, vigorously rubbing on a violet stain on the wall, when some strange rattle from the living room caught his attention. He listened carefully as the noises got louder until they culminated with a piercing smash of glass, springing Sherlock on his feet and out of the kitchen.

He found William near the fireplace, sitting in front of scattered shards of a fake Persian vase which looked like the source of hundreds of golf balls now covering the floor of the living room. The boy was laughing his ass off watching the balls roll around, so apparently he wasn’t hurt, but Sherlock picked him up anyway and examined him thoroughly on the sofa. No, not hurt. Thank God. John would have killed him. And then Mycroft would have brought him back to life just so he could kill him again himself.

He looked around the room, puzzled, when the memory of the murder case on the golf course sprang back into his mind. The suspect claimed that the victim slipped and landed with his head on a golf ball, cracking open his skull, but the ground around the corpse was relatively soft and the wound had a rather suspicious shape. A boring case, actually. Sherlock eventually proved that the victim got his head smashed with a golf club, but all the same, he acquired a large number of golf balls, which lead to some creative skull smashing at the Bart’s. It could be done, under right circumstances. Eventually, he got bored and stored the remaining balls in the vase.

William apparently found the vase and was high enough to see the golf balls in it, but too small to reach them and extract like he was supposed to do with the plastic container, tripping the vase in the process. The plastic container lay empty in the middle of the room and the ball was nowhere to be seen. Of course he would figure it out soon enough; he was his son after all.

Sherlock allowed himself proud smile before he winded around the golf balls to collect a plastic box, a dustpan and a broom. He placed the box next to William and started throwing balls into it so that they made a loud bang as they landed. William laughed and clapped at each pop and eventually got up on his feet and tried it himself. Another smirk stretched over Sherlock’s face. He really started liking him; the boy was up for every experiment he proposed.

“That way easy,” Sherlock smiled and returned his attention to the shards on the other side of the room. With combined efforts the two Holmes boys eventually cleaned the living room and Sherlock took extra care to return everything to its designated place. Coming up with an excuse for the missing vase would be an easy task but Sherlock doubted John would notice, he didn’t like the vase anyway.

When the room finally gave the impression that nothing suspicious was going on, he poked around the still unpacked boxes of William’s toys until he found a colouring book and some crayons. Enough damage was done for the day, so he decided to rather keep William company until John returned, which shouldn’t be much longer. He was already gone for three hours.

Sherlock sat on the floor behind the coffee table and called William to join him, combined with some rustling of the book. He felt like Pavlov, training a dog, but it worked. He opened the colouring book somewhere random, placed it in front of William and gave him two crayons. He himself picked the purple one and started colouring in the corner of the page. William watched him intently, following the lines with his finger and as soon as Sherlock dropped the crayon, William grabbed it and started colouring all over the book. Of course the paper was too small for the grand masterpiece and soon the coffee table bore rainbow colours as well.

They were colouring the fourth page when John returned and called both their names in greeting.

“John,” Sherlock called back, when the doctor enter the living room, frowning.

“Sherlock, why does it smell like burned paper and … hair? Did you do an experiment?”

“The blood!” Sherlock shrieked, but before he managed to get up and over the coffee table, a loud explosion resonated from the kitchen, followed by some smoke and clanking of glass shards. Both men froze, looking at each other across the room and William started crying.

“Sherlock, please, tell me you didn’t just blow up our kitchen,” John said as calmly as possible when the noises in the kitchen died out. And he didn’t sound calm at all.

“I made a _mistake_!” Sherlock hissed through his teeth. “A mistake, John! My brain has deteriorated to this extent in such short time! This child will kill me by the end of the week!”

“This is hardy the point I was aiming at!”

“Not good?”

“Christ!” John shouted and looked towards the kitchen. The walls were still standing, he could give him that. Sherlock took on an even whiter shade of pale and opened his mouth, but not a word came out in the first few tries.

“It was just a bottle of blood, there shouldn’t be much damage …” he said under his voice, a bit reluctant to glance towards the kitchen door. John stared at him, his face skewed with that death glare usually reserved for people who dared to touch or insult his Sherlock.

It couldn’t possibly be that bad. No one died. Yet. No one had a Semtex vest pinned on, although the feeling was awkwardly similar. No one was shooting at him, so he couldn’t really justify the urges to grab his Browning right that moment and point it at a certain mad detective. And he really, really didn’t want to go and get some air first thing after returning home. Hungry and with an urgent need to use the toilet, if things were not exciting enough on their own. One really has to be a genius to achieve this in four hours.

John took a deep breath with the self-control of the soldier and walked towards the kitchen. Sherlock, a bit lost on what to do after reading John’s internal monologue on his face, picked William up and followed his furious flatmate.

“A bottle of blood?” John asked when he froze in horror at the doorway.

“Yes.”

“Just a bottle of blood?”

“Yes,” Sherlock repeated a bit annoyed.

“Because it fucking looks like you killed someone in here!” John shouted, but felt far short of the outrage he’d been aiming for, which he needed to correct immediately. “With a fucking chain saw!”

He suddenly felt a primal urge to start laughing. He couldn’t even deal with this after a cup of tea, prepared by himself, in his bloody kitchen! No pan intended as from now on.

The whole kitchen was covered in drops of blood and shards of the exploded glass bottle. The bottleneck with apparently to tightly closed cap was laying near his feet and the ceiling, oh God the ceiling. There was a huge splash of coagulated blood above the stove, still dripping a bit on the kitchen counter below. The gas stove was still on, the pot black with soot. Thank God he only left for four hours, otherwise there would be no 221B to return to. No, Sherlock was capable of wiping the whole Baker Street off the maps of London without really trying.

John retrieved some old newspapers from the living room and made a path with them to the stove, so he could turn off the gas without stepping on the blood or shards.

“Tea first,” he declared as he retraced his steps back to the living room, walked straight down the stairs and knocked on Mrs Hudson’s door to find out they were just in time for lunch. John smiled. Of course Sherlock would find a way to avoid cooking, but nevertheless, Mrs Hudson was his favourite person at that moment. Thank God for his landlady.

 

“Change the nappy and straight to bed,” John ordered when they returned upstairs one hour later. The lunch was brilliant and he hadn’t even realized how much he missed home cooked meals. Sherlock did at least one thing right that day, although John doubted it was intentional.

The detective rolled his eyes but obeyed without a word, wrestling a clean nappy out of the box before retreating to his bedroom with the boy in his arms. John was amazed how quickly Sherlock went from _Get that thing out of my face_ to _Don’t you dare touch him, he’s mine_. Considering this, maybe leaving those two alone in the morning wasn’t such a bad idea after all. But he knew better than to say anything to his flatmate. Sherlock would deny it anyway.

Then again, the price for it was rather high.

He turned back to the kitchen with a sigh, glad the topic didn’t come up during lunch. He certainly preferred Mrs Hudson never heard a word of it, which meant he would have to clean everything way faster than Sherlock managed to do it. And repaint the ceiling. And buy a new pot. But first, he picked up his phone and called the clinic to let them know he’ll need at least a few days of maternity leave. God help him.

Cleaning the shards was the easy part, since the blood dried out. He never thought he would be so hysterically happy Sherlock cleared most of the surfaces the previous evening. All he had to do was wipe everything clean and disinfect. 

Sherlock conveniently emerged from his room almost two hours later, when John was already half through the cleaning.

“He refused to fall asleep,” he murmured apathetically and glanced around the kitchen until his eyes settled on John, who was trying to reach the uppermost shelf with a wet cloth.

“Help me, will you?”

Sherlock took the cloth from John and started wiping without taking too much pains to do it. John pulled the chair from the table, expected it for shards and dropped himself on it, exhausted. He was sore all over.

“How the hell did this happen?”

“I already told you, the bottle exploded.”

“Before that.”

“I was trying to warm up the blood when William … started making a mess in the living room. I left to take care of it and apparently _forgot. About. The blood_.” The last words were squeezed through his teeth. “ _Forgot_ , for God sake!”

John tried to sigh as loud as possible to make his disappointment clear, which was a bit difficult to do with a smiling face.

“No experiments, remember?”

“There’s no material left to experiment on,” Sherlock pointed out, annoyed to the core over that particular fact. “My brain will rot! It has already started …”

Sherlock hasn’t even warmed up yet when his tirade got interrupted by the cracklings and cries coming from the baby phone stuck to the waistband of his pyjama trousers. His face grimaced in something close to despair.

“He can’t stay put, not even for twenty minutes!”

“He has your genes all right,” John laughed. It was not a hard decision from his side; he really didn’t mind some rest and it was a perfect opportunity to make Sherlock serve his punishment for the damage to the kitchen and John’s nerves. Again.

“I’ll take it, you finish cleaning the kitchen.”

He fled the kitchen before his flatmate could protest, taking the baby phone with him. He really didn’t want Sherlock to follow the live stream of his struggles to put William back to sleep.

William was sitting in the middle of his father’s bed, sobbing and looking utterly bored and offended. The boy immediately gestured his wishes to be picked up and that was exactly how John imagined the beginnings of the great Sherlock Holmes.

“You should be sleeping,” John reminded him, simply ignoring William’s protest as he made himself comfortable on the bed and picked up the book that was lying open on the pillow. _Developmental psychology_. Sherlock was apparently serious about this. _How he even managed to find this book in such short time?_

But instead of reading, John started telling William stories about his father and their adventures over the last two years, using the words _dad_ and _Sherlock_ as often as possible. William was carefully listening to John and occasionally contributing with random gibberish, until he gradually felt silent and asleep.

John lingered in the bed a little longer, enjoying the luxury of peace and quiet and relishing at the idea of Sherlock cleaning the kitchen. He would better imprint the memory deeply into his mind because he doubted it would happen again anytime soon.

After what felt like an eternity the rattle in the kitchen finally died out, which meant John had approximately ten minutes before Sherlock got bored and started experimenting on the drying blood on the ceiling. John tried to remove himself from the bed as carefully as possible, but William apparently had an inbuilt motion detector. Well, at least he slept for an hour and a half straight, so he just picked him up and joined Sherlock in the living room. The kitchen, for a change, was perfectly clean.

“You didn’t use anything toxic to clean it, did you?”

“No,” Sherlock stretched the word into a whine. He was sprawled on the sofa, fingers steepled under his chin.

“Good, that’s good,” commented John to himself and prepared two tea mugs. The rest of the afternoon passed peacefully under the watchful eye of the Captain. There were some attempts at boredom from both of them, but eventually they settled on the sofa. Sherlock was sprawled all over the place trying to read while William kept himself busy by staffing various toys under his father’s T-shirt. John browsed through the newspaper, something he thought he wouldn’t be able to do so soon.

The little domestic scene was abruptly interrupted by a massage alert from Sherlock’s phone. His face lit up as he read the text and John could feel the excitement growing in Sherlock’s still frame, but the moment William ignorantly squeezed another staffed animal under his shirt, the smile slowly died out. After a short reply he dropped the phone on the floor and reached for his book.

“What was it?” John asked, putting down the newspaper.

“A double murder.”

“We can go in the morning,” he suggested, seeing the disappointment Sherlock was struggling to hide.

“Sounded dull, they’ll probably solve it by then,” the detective replied, not looking away from the book. William stuffed the last soft toy under the overstretched T-shirt and started clapping at the excitement of the finally accomplished task. Sherlock looked like he was in his tenth month of pregnancy.

John massaged his face with both hands and looked around the room. He had to find a distraction for Sherlock that would simultaneously keep William safe. And as soon as possible. Sherlock avoiding a murder case was only a transitory state and soon the three patches he stuck on his tight wrongly assuming John wouldn’t notice won’t be enough anymore. John would have to compromise and he didn’t like the idea at all. Not when everything was still so new for all three of them. But that could wait till morning, along with the shopping list for painting material.

“Sherlock,” John murmured, screening the room one more time. “What did you do with the vase?”

 


	4. Chapter 4

When John woke up the next morning, Sherlock and William were already in the living room, sitting on the floor. Sherlock was trying to feed his son while the boy was busy fiddling with a picture book and skilfully avoiding the spoon his father was trying to bring to his mouth.

“Morning,” John yawned and got a half-eaten _Good morning_ and a whoop in acknowledgement. After a trip to the bathroom, he proceeded to the kitchen and prepared two mugs of tea and two and a half portions of scrambled eggs. He deliberately avoided looking up through the whole process and when he finally set the tray with their breakfast on the coffee table in the living room, he said:

“We should repaint the ceiling before someone accuses us of a first degree murder.”

“Dull,” Sherlock muttered and sat on the sofa, bringing the cereal bowl with him. He had dark circles under his eyes and John was pretty sure he didn’t bother nor shaving nor combing his hair in the morning.

“I should have known,” sighed John. “Can you at least try not to destroy anything else for one hour so I can go get the stuff I’ll need?”

“You should just call someone,” suggested Sherlock with his bored tone, picking up his portion of scrambled eggs just for the sake of getting Williams attention. The boy slowly approached the coffee table, looking at the plate in Sherlock’s hands.

“I would really rather not have that someone calling the police on as,” John pointed out again, but Sherlock wasn’t listening anymore. He took two bites and placed the plate in front of William. The boy picked up the fork and started messing around the plate until Sherlock caught the far end of the fork and guided him. John smiled and picked up his plate. He would never have guessed that Sherlock had a touch for children, but then again, he was just an overgrown child himself.

“Wash the dishes and _do not_ destroy anything. No experiments, and do not leave William alone,” John gave the instructions when they finished their breakfast and took his jacket. Sherlock murmured something in acknowledgement and took the tray back to the kitchen.

“Do not encourage him,” John cheerfully said to William, who was sitting on the floor at the head of his toy army. “I’ll be back as soon as possible. Bye!”

“Bye, bye, bye,” cheered William and started clutching his fingers in greeting.

“Oh my God!” The words escaped John before he could stop them and he hurried to redeem the damage: “Bye, bye, William!”

He clenched his fingers in the same way as William did, with an enormous smile on his face. He waved to Sherlock, too, who was watching them from the kitchen in amusement and disappeared down the stairs. The little boy just made his day.

Still smiling to his ears, he hailed a cub and rushed to the nearest DIY shop. A roller with a long handle, a paintbrush for the corners, a bucket of white paint of course (a rather big one, so there will be some left for the next time), a wrap of polyvinyl and some adhesive tape. And a light bulb, to use as an excuse to why he needs to borrow Mrs Hudson’s stepladder.

He returned home an hour and a half later and slowly pushed the door open, silently praying there is still a living room to step into and a ceiling to repaint.

“That was quick,” Sherlock said instead of a _hello_.

All four walls were still there, so that was good. But then his mind focused on the enormous mess in the living room and he started having second thoughts. There were papers spread all over the horizontal surfaces in the room and William was happily walking over them and laughing at the noises, leaving behind a wet tea trail from his baby mug.

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning the old case files. I need to make some room to store William’s stuff,” Sherlock explained, not bothering to look up from the file he was reading. _Reading_ , not actually cleaning. He was like a child, who was supposed to clean up his room, but found some long forgotten toys in the process and started playing with them right when the mess in the room was at its finest.  John shook his head and headed for the kitchen. It was a lost cause and he didn’t bother sighing any more.

Instead, he immediately got to work. He cleared all exposed surfaces and wrapped all non-removable pieces of furniture into polyvinyl and old newspapers. It took him two hours just to get everything ready and he was glad Mrs Hudson was so enthusiastic about cooking for them. The kitchen would be useless for the rest of the day, which meant take-away for dinner again. So much about eating healthier now that they had a kid.

When he returned to the living room a few minutes till noon, the paper battle-field was still there. Yes, there were a few piles of neatly arranged folders on the coffee table, but the general impression was a fine example of chaos. Sherlock was still reading, aloud this time, using simple words and John rolled his eyes when it occurred to him that the detective was explaining the evidence to William, who was sitting on the floor next to him and not really paying attention.

“Launch,” announced John and picked William up. The boy immediately shovelled a crime scene photo to John’s face, detailing a not really neatly severed foot, and started enthusiastically pointing at the blood-stained toes.

“Yes, William, you have those too,” said John with a bit of fake enthusiasm before throwing Sherlock a pointed look. “Nice touch.”

“I started young,” Sherlock said in explanation, threw his blue robe over his shoulders and dramatically stormed past John and down the stairs.

“At least give him some cases of poisoning, with no blood all over severed body parts!”

 

After lunch, during which John found himself questioning several times who exactly was the child at the table, all three Baker Street boys returned to their unfinished choirs: John changed into some old clothes and opened the bucket of paint, Sherlock returned to reading the fake suicide case file and William took the chaos in the living room to a whole new level by overturning the box with his toys and spreading them all over the floor. The battle was lost before it even started.

John soaked the roller in the paint and got to work. Of course it seemed easier in his mind than it actually was and before he knew it, both he and the kitchen were covered in drops of paint. But the ceiling was slowly getting whiter and soon enough, John started to enjoy himself, dragging the roller in various shapes.

“No!” a cry suddenly came from the living room, immediately followed by a loud thud and squeak. “Oh God, John …”

“Sherlock!” screamed John, immediately jumped off the stepladder and run to the living room. Sherlock was lying on the floor, curled in the foetal position with both hands in his dark curls now glistering with blood.

“Sherlock, what happened?! Are you OK?!” John kneeled besides his flatmate and tried to gently manoeuvre Sherlock’s shaking hands away from the wound on the back of his head. “Let me see!”

Sherlock was breathing erratically, shaking slightly and not cooperating at all. After a minute, John managed to remove his bloodied fingers from his curls and started searching. What he found with horror was a heavily bleeding, almost three inches long cut and John’s face got paler in a second.

“Christ, Sherlock, can’t you do anything by half?”

He immediately run to the bathroom, thoroughly washed and disinfected his hands and grabbed his doctor’s bag from under the sink.

“What happened?” Sherlock murmured with a shaky voice when he heard John return to the room. William was sitting next to him, babbling something and offering Sherlock a toy to soothe him.

“You have a concussion,” John whispered just loud enough for Sherlock to hear him since his ears were probably ringing the brains out of him. He moved William in front of a new toy box on the other side of the room and returned to his flatmate.

Removing Sherlock’s hands again, he cleaned the hair out of the wound and pressed a sterile gauze over it to soak away the blood. He then cut away some of his beautiful curls that were getting in the way. Heart-breaking, but he had to close the wound. In the meantime, William returned with a new toy and tried to grab a handful of Sherlock’s hair like he saw John doing.

“William, not now,” the doctor said with a firm voice and gently pushed the boy away with his forearm. William made a step back and started sobbing. He watched John work for another minute, got bored again and walked around them to Sherlock’s front. He grabbed a handful of his father’s hair and started pulling on it, but Sherlock was too far gone to care.

“William, where is your turtle?”

William looked at John, got up and run towards his pile of toys on the other side of the room. John soaked a sterile gauze with an antiseptic and started cleaning the wound, luring skewed cries out of his flatmate. By that point the blood was everywhere.

“We should go to the hospital. This is much worse than I thought, you’ll need stiches,” said John and helplessly looked at William, who came standing by his side with the stuffed turtle in his arms. He decided to ignore him and hope it will pass.

“You’re a doctor,” murmured Sherlock and slowly reached to the back of his head to check on the wound, but John stopped him.

“I can almost see your skull, for God sake! This might be serious, you obviously hit your head pretty hard,” insisted John and searched his first aid kit for adhesive strips to use as provisory stiches.

“I’m fine. I didn’t lose consciousness, I can speak clearly and I’m not confused and nauseated anymore,” Sherlock tried to reassure him, but he was speaking much slower than usually. He stopped shaking and his body considerably relaxed under his careful hands, but John wanted to see a CT of his head all the same. No such thing as too much caution when Sherlock’s involved.

“Sherlock, I think ...”

“They’ll know. They’ll take him away.”

John sighed, but he couldn’t deny it was a fair possibility. Doing things that result in open head wounds just had to fit in the _dangerous activities_ category, and given the astute plan the Hughes came up with, he was quite sure the location of the accident wouldn’t count as mitigating circumstance.

“I don’t think you can conceal a bandage on your head anyway.” He started applying the adhesive sticks to keep the wound closed. Luckily, the bleeding seemed to diminish.

“You know I can fool anyone, but try to make it minimalistic.”

Sherlock being sarcastic was a good sign.

“All right, but if you’re not fine tomorrow, we’ll go to see a doctor immediately.” John carefully applied a small bandage just to keep the hair out of the wound and went to wash the blood of his hands. He returned with a wet towel and carefully wiped the blood from Sherlock’s hair and hands. The collar of his blue gown was soaked, not to mention the red spot on the carpet. He would have to take care of that, too.

“How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts, but the rest is fine,” Sherlock said and glanced at John for any signs of protest as he struggled first to his knees and then to a sitting position in the middle of the living room with no usual graciousness in his movements. He was a bit dizzy and lightheaded, but that’s how he felt when high. _And he proudly solved cases in that state!_ So he slowly glanced around, grimaced at a few undefined objects in his eye field and threw out his arms, pointing.

“I stepped back on that soft toy, I probably thought I stepped on William and got scared, or less likely slipped on it, felt back and hit my head on the coffee table. There’s still blood on the edge.”

Brilliant, he was above even a head concussion.

“Christ, you’re a lucky bastard with a thick head, you know. Those accidents usually end with a corpse,” John said and massaged his face with both hands as he sank into his chair still buried under the papers. He was far past the point of caring if Sherlock still needed them, as if he did in the first place.

“I probably landed on my behind first, it hurts a bit,” explained Sherlock, ignoring John’s insult and gently touched the bandage with one finger. He made a mental note to have John take some pictures of the cut so he could follow the healing process and bruises. If he managed to cut his head open, he might as well turn it into an experiment. “Those ‘ _accidents’_ have quotation marks around them for a reason.”

“Right,” murmured John, not really caring, and relaxed into his chair to let his body get rid of the adrenalin. Sherlock moved a bit to the side and leaned on the sofa for support with a sigh of annoyance. Like he had time for a concussion now that they had …

“John … Where’s William?”

 And the calm was gone.

The two just looked at each other and struggled back to their feet in an instant. Sherlock, still a bit dizzy, staggered to the empty hallway, while John ran to the kitchen.

“Oh, God, no, please … Sherlock!”

William was sitting in the middle of a big puddle of paint next to the overturned bucket, enthusiastically splashing the white liquid all around him. There were footprints and handprints on all surfaces up to one meter from the ground and it was not really necessary to mention the boy was covered in paint up to the top of his head.

John stood frozen at the doorway, gasping for air in utter terror and disbelief. Sherlock shoved his blue dressing gown in John’s arms as he stormed past him waded right into the paint with his bare feet. He snatched William off the ground and forced open his mouth.

“Thank God he didn’t inherit your oral fixation,” John exhaled and collapsed on his knees in relief when Sherlock let out the breath he was holding. On the high with enthusiasm, William pulled his face out of Sherlock’s hand and before he knew it, his father had a white handprint on each cheek.

“Straight to the bathroom, both of you,” John managed to say in between supressed giggles. He felt like he just won the lottery jackpot. “I’ll try to save the kitchen and enough paint to finish the ceiling.”

Sherlock looked at the half painted ceiling and then down to the pool of paint. An amused smile stretched over his face as he waded past John, who was still grinning like an idiot. Not only his fault this time.

 

Just as he didn’t like nappy changes, so William didn’t like having his clothes removed, even if they were sticky and soaked with paint. And as he didn’t like his cot, so he didn’t like the bathtub and rubber ducks and soap bubbles didn’t help at all. He was covered in slowly drying paint, which was going to be a pain to remove from his sensitive skin as it was, and his struggles just made it a ride through hell. Not to mention the dizziness he felt from being slouched over the bathtub with the newly acquired concussion in all its painful glory.

“Fine,” Sherlock eventually hissed and started removing his already wet clothes. He crawled into the bathtub and instantly became the best toy in the bath. While his body served as a playground for all squeaky rubber toys William had, he gradually managed to rub the paint off without making his son’s skin worryingly red. But then there were still smeared handprints on his own cheeks and neck, and washing the itching dried blood from behind his right ear sounded like a nice idea, too.

“John!” Sherlock called and started rinsing William with warm water. “Come here a bit.”

“In a minute!” John yelled back and draw the last brush stroke in the corner of the kitchen ceiling. _Excellent._ All that remained was the mess on the floor and since the paint was half dry already, he was seriously playing with the idea to just leave everything till evening. He left the brush in the diluter to clean later and headed to the bathroom.

He confidently opened the door and stepped directly into the pool of water on the floor. There were toys and bottles of various shampoos everywhere and a pile of Sherlock’s clothes was lying in the middle of the floor, effectively covering the drain. The two little devils basically recreated the kitchen paint flood in less than an hour.

“What the hell did …”

“Take William, I can’t wash myself properly with him in the tub,” Sherlock cut John short and started struggling on his feet in the bath.

“You’re naked.”

“Excellent observation, John,” said Sherlock, handing him the boy. The _idiot_ at the end of the sentence was implied loud and clear.

John blushed, wrapped the boy in a clean towel and left the bathroom as quickly as possible, wandering why he never though the asexual Sherlock had a penis, too.

He dried William up, dressed him and blow-dried his almost blond curls. He then changed his own clothes in something not stained with paint and ungracefully, but with great satisfaction, finally wiped Sherlock’s papers from his chair.

“So, where were we,” he said as he sat William in his lap. “Right, I was teaching you the word dad. Can you say dad? Dad Sherlock. Father Sherlock. No, that sounds like a priest, the church would reach its doom in a week! Daddy Sherlock. God, it still sounds weird.”

“Dada,” chattered William and started fiddling with the staffed turtle John picked up on the way.

“Yes, daddy! Say daddy again,” John encouraged him.

“Dadadada!”

“Daddy.”

“Dy!”

“Daddy! Say daddy!”

“Daddy!” William eventually squeaked after a few more tries, almost throwing John out of his skin from excitement.

“Yes, William, daddy! Say that again, say daddy!”

“Daddy!” William cheered and started clapping enthusiastically at John’s reaction.

“Hmm,” a murmur came from the other side of the room. “You could teach him something useful, like hungry or dirty nappy.”

“Sherlock!” squeaked John in embarrassment. Sherlock was standing at the doorway of the kitchen in probably nothing but his red dressing gown, hair still dump and cheeks flushed from rubbing and steam in the bathroom.

“Hope you didn’t open your wound,” hurried John to hide how awkward he suddenly felt. But then again, why exactly did he? He was right, after all. “And what could possibly be more useful than daddy, so he can call you when he wants or needs you?”

“As long as he calls you the same …” Sherlock murmured after a quick thought and disappeared back into his room.

“What? Why? I’m not his father!”

“No, but in this way it doesn’t always have to be me.”

“I should have known!” John said with a funny intonation to his voice, trying to sound offended and laughing at the same time.

“And how else is he supposed to call you? You’ll be raising him, too,” Sherlock pointed out, back at the doorframe, this time in a fresh pair of pyjama trousers, carefully pulling a T-shirt over his head.

“Great, now people will have _a lot_ to talk about.”

“I would be surprised if they did anything else.”

 

It was amazing, how, after a whole day of moving one paper at the time, Sherlock managed to clean the living room in a blink of an eye by simply throwing everything away. And yes, despite all odds being against it, there was room for two boxes of toys and a whole meter on the bookshelf for William’s story books, although John doubted they would stay there long. Sherlock put way too much effort in showing his distaste towards them.

“No wonder people are stupid if the first thing they learn is that animals talk and dress like people!”

“Sherlock!”

All that was left now were the remains of the kitchen adventure and the toy invasion in the living room. After some childish bickering, John went back to the kitchen while Sherlock got the important task of cleaning the living room, which immediately made it to his top ten list of tedious tasks. He had to change the approach.

The silence that gradually filled the flat soon started to sound suspicious and John came to check on them. Or would, if they were still in the living room.

“Sherlock?”

“Shhh,” came from behind Sherlock’s armchair. “John must not find us!”

A smile sneaked on John’s face.

“Where did they go? And what are they doing?” he asked with way too much wonder in his voice to sound credible to any sane adult.

“We’re on a secret mission to clean the living room without John noticing,” the deep whisper came again, followed by William’s laughter. Now that he paid more attention, the living room did look tidier.

After some additional rumble from behind the armchair and Sherlock’s failed attempts to make William stop laughing and cheering (if anything, he achieved the opposite), a message came to John’s phone.

_Just pretend you’re searching for us and go back to the kitchen. – SH_

This was perfect! Sherlock playing with his son and enjoying it more than William was. John suddenly felt warm inside.

“Where did they go?” he asked, playing the game, looked behind the sofa and then returned to the kitchen with a proud smile on his face.

 

When Sherlock and William completed their super secret cleaning mission, John ordered Italian take-away and some ice-cream as a reward. William was still happily calling _daddy_ all the things he came across and annoying his actual father in the process. In a desperate attempt to distract him, Sherlock fished out the building blocks, a rare toy without some kind of face jumble on it, and started building a tower, but William called it _daddy_ nevertheless. 

Just when he placed the last block on the tower, his phone vibrated. William, who was patiently waiting for Sherlock to finish, got up, smashed the block tower, and sat back on his father side, waiting for Sherlock to rebuild it.

_Found another body, looks like a perfect continuation to the two from yesterday. GL_

_Still busy. -SH_

_What could you possibly find more interesting than a serial killer?_

_Building blocks. -SH_

Sherlock proudly tossed his phone back in his pocket, discussion closed, and started building the tower from scratch. His self-control was on fire!

Not a minute later John emerged from the kitchen with his phone in the hand and a puzzled expression:

“Sherlock, why is Lestrade asking me if you’re feeling all right?”

 

By the evening, 221B looked like nothing conspicuous ever happened. The kitchen, including the ceiling, was sparkling clean, except for a few staffed toys and building blocks, the living room looked like nor Sherlock nor William lived there and the floor in the bathroom was wiped dry. John had to take a few hundred photos of Sherlock’s bump before the detective was satisfied but eventually all three of them settled down. Sherlock immediately started dozing off and although William was yawning like a crocodile for the past hour, he was fighting it far better than his father did.

“I need to get him to sleep. _I_ need to sleep,” Sherlock murmured, eyes closed, but somehow still managed to keep William from climbing to the floor.

“Try the violin, it works wonders on me,” suggested John. Sherlock gave him a desperate look, but took his violin with him anyway. After one hour of gibberish, cries, whines and low register pledges and sighs, finally, the only think John could hear from Sherlock’s room was the beautiful, restful sound of his favourite instrument. When John started drifting off, too, he retreated to his bedroom, where the low vibrations of the lullaby slowly pulled him into unconscious.

 

It seemed like he just closed his eyes when he was gently awoken by the rustles of the fabric and shakes of the bed. When he turned around, Sherlock crawled under the duvet next to him and buried his face into the pillow.

“Is everything OK?”

“It will be, if he won’t wake up in the next five minutes … _Three hours!_ before he fell asleep without me next to him,” Sherlock murmured into the pillow. “I really need to sleep.”

“How can you go for days without sleeping during a case?” John asked, puzzled, and struggled on his elbows to have a better look at the dark mess of curls peeking out from under the duvet.

“I can lead myself in some kind of trans in which I can sleep and think at the same time. I haven’t slept at all in the last three days…”

“You never slept in there with William?” John said, concern loud and clear in his words.

“No, I tend to toss around if I fall asleep for good and I didn’t want to crash him by accident. That’s also why sofa won’t do right now … I just need a few hours, John … please …” He was talking so slow it almost sounded painful. So his grumpy mood in the last two days was justified after all. And he got himself a bloody concussion on top of it. John almost felt sorry for him.

“Should I go on the sofa?”

“No, you should be fine.”

So he said …

 


	5. Chapter 5

John didn’t sleep really well that night. And not at all after Sherlock’s hand landed across his chest around the morning. Despite that, he decided to ignore the rest of the world for as long as possible, but William had other plans. The sun barely reached past the curtains when some high pitched whining came out of the baby-phone Sherlock brought with him and didn’t even bother detaching from the waist of his pyjama trousers. Expecting him to wake up at his son’s cries was another John’s illusion altogether.

William was crawling on the edge of the bed, trying to come up with a master plan to get down to the floor. When John peeked into Sherlock’s bedroom, the boy immediately sat down and extended his arms towards him.

“Daddy!”

“The two of you conspired against me yesterday, didn’t you?”

He was becoming the master of the morning routine; change the nappy, wash yourself while keeping William busy in the bathroom, prepare something to eat with one hand and feed the baby determined to skip the breakfast. Damn Sherlock and his genes.

After all their basic needs were satisfied and William dedicated himself to pulling the books out of the bookshelves, John retrieved his laptop from under a pile of Sherlock’s papers and checked his blog. His inbox was full of new emails and his last blog post had several new comments, some of which were already taking up a worrying note since no one heard from him for five days. He quickly typed a reply to assure them he was still alive and kicking. He wandered whether he was allowed to mention William, but decided against it. Instead, he started writing a whole post just for William and their adventures in the first week, which he would post online as soon as the boy was officially in Sherlock’s care. Not that he didn’t have faith in his flatmate, but they did some things that were better left unmentioned before the papers were signed.

He two-fingerly typed what looked like the longest post ever describing just the first two days of their new life when Sherlock finally emerged from John’s bedroom, looking like a gigantic bulldozer run over him. Twice.

“I overslept,” he murmured in apology, trying to focus his eyes on anything at all. “I think my brain died. It’s so calm.”

“Go take a shower,” John laughed and tried to refrain himself from filming Sherlock with his phone to include it in the post he was typing. Sherlock turned his head in the general direction of the well-known voice for a long moment, visibly processing the words, and then dragged himself towards the bathroom.

He re-emerged half an hour later, showered, shaved and composed, although the dark circled under his eyes still stood witness to the previous sleepless nights. He sat on the sofa and William immediately run to him with one of his story books that were now lying on the floor near the bookcases.

“Read!” the boy ordered and struggled to climb on the sofa. Sherlock sat him on his lap and opened the book, but after a minute of apathetic staring into the colourful pages with barely any words on them, he decided it was too much for him after all.

“I can’t do this …” Sherlock trailed off and after a moment looked up at John with a face that usually announced trouble. “Are there any baby approved sleeping pills?”

John looked over the laptop screen, amused. He was glad that, at least this time, Sherlock had the decency to ask first.

“No, and don’t go hitting him on the head either.”

Sherlock slowly closed his eyes and took a deep breath, preparing for one of his tantrums John missed so much in the last five days.

“We should tire him up,” John quickly cut him off before he even started to warm up. “The first day he fell asleep rather quickly, he was probably exhausted from moving and meeting a lot of new people. We could go out today. To the park, the weatherman promised a relatively nice day.”

Sherlock considered the suggestion a bit, looked down at William who was fiddling with the book and supposedly reading it in his gibberish, and back at John.

“Tedious.”

“It’s this or reading him stories till you drop.”

Sherlock’s brows furrowed, intensely searching for another solution and when he failed, he switched to how to make it look like he was being forced and blackmailed, but eventually he collected William in his arms and stood up.

“Let us just get dressed.”

It was a warm spring day and it didn’t take them long to reappear in the living room dressed in light clothes. Sherlock couldn’t refrain from wearing his suit, but at least he didn’t take his ever present coat. William, dressed in blue trousers and a dark blue sweater, was already saying _bye bye_ to the furniture and other things he passed on the way to the door. John grabbed William’s travel bag he prepared in the meantime and hurried Sherlock down the stairs before the detective changed his mind. William wasn’t the only one looking forward to some sun and fresh air.

The walk to the park passed peacefully. Sherlock was possessively caring William and glaring at everyone who dared to give them too much attention while walking past them. In the meantime, William was cheerfully blabbing something and pointing at various objects and people. John was pointedly ignoring Sherlock’s antics and smiling to himself just for the sake of it. One has to enjoy it until it lasts.

When they reached York Gate of Regent’s park, Sherlock lowered William to the ground and they headed left towards the nearest playground. They were moving slowly, mostly waiting for William to explore the new surroundings, picking up or at least touching anything that stood out from the immense green background. Sherlock was always somewhere near, keeping an eye on him and exponentially losing his patience with every meter they moved forward. John was amazed how much female attention he got (and was of course annoyed with it) just for wearily pacing behind his curious son and promised himself to take William around London in the near future. Preferably more than once. As many times as possible, actually.

Until William called both of them _daddy_. After that, the ground was instantly cleared and John made a mental note to leave Sherlock at home for that occasion.

After John forbid him disseminating loud (and mostly not nice) deductions about passers-by, Sherlock switched to monotonous nagging about the unacceptability of their motion speed and how on Earth was he supposed to work at half a mile per hour and John started wondering if he can also speak while inhaling. They were loafing alongside the lake shore, surrounded by the calm of the small lost fragment of nature in the middle of the chaotic concrete city and John had just about enough of Sherlock’s interfering with him being able to enjoy the rare opportunity. They were merely half way to the playground and he was sure the last half was going to be a walk through hell with the devil himself as a guide.

“We could try to feed the ducks,” John cut Sherlock’s monologue, seeing a family on the other side of the lake doing just that, and pulled out of William’s bag a paper bag with the only not yet mouldy loaf of bread he managed to find in the flat. Sherlock’s eyes narrowed.

“Why would we do that?”

“Because it’s fun.”

“No, it’s not. How can throwing pieces of stale food to floating poultry be fun?”

“For William, it’s fun for children,” John sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose in another Sherlock-induced headache, but the moment later returned to his senses and shovelled the bag in Sherlock’s hand. “Just feed the ducks!”

Sherlock let out a huff of annoyance but sat on the bank of the lake all the same. William immediately squatted besides him, curiously eyeing the bag in Sherlock’s hands and in less than a minute, the two were surrounded by what looked like half of the duck population of Regent’s park. After two small pieces of bread experimentally thrown in the middle of the flock to provoke a fury among the birds and laughter from William, Sherlock started passing the crumbled bread to his son, who happily took over the important mission.

After every thrown piece of bread, which more often landed at the boy’s feet then in the water, the boy cheered and clapped, happily trying to grab the ducks that dared to come too close. Eventually, the fuss at the bank attracted also a family of swans and John took the opportunity to take a few pictures of the idyllic family moment (careful to catch Sherlock from his back, not to let his annoyed frown spoil every picture) with the two majestic birds and four specimens of their not yet so majestic offspring. He even managed to get a short video of the father swan and Sherlock hissing at each other.

Half the loaf of bread later, Sherlock finally got tired of trying too hard to look like someone was torturing him and John secretly took another picture of the two Holmes boys just for him. Phone with the precious pictures safely in his jacket pocket, he smiled to himself and sat on the bank, turning his face against the sun. Somewhere in the background Sherlock’s phone rang, but he couldn’t care less.

 “John, my phone.”

“Not a chance, Sherlock,” John leisurely murmured and didn’t even bother sparing him a glance. William started pulling on Sherlock’s sleeve, so he gave him the piece of bread he already had in hand and fished the phone out of the pocket himself.

_How is the sun, brother? – MH_

William was tugging at his sleeve again and Sherlock murmured something like _Sodding Mycroft_ , placed the phone on the bank and proceeded to make some new bread crumples.

“What does he want?”

“Nothing, just reminding me that he has CCTV here, too,” barked Sherlock, annoyed all over again. John made a silent promise to appropriately thank Mycroft for this the next time he sees him. Sometimes he wondered if Sherlock was really the childish one, as Mycroft so eagerly claimed at each visit.

Sherlock gave the pieces of bread to William and typed the response.

_Fine. How’s the diet? – SH_

Of course William threw all the pieces in the water at once and was pulling on Sherlock’s jacket again. Sherlock sighed, placed the phone back down and attacked the remaining piece of the loaf. He tore three smaller pieces, but when he turned to give them to William, the boy was curiously fiddling with his phone. It had to be pretty boring, because before the detective had time to even process the new information, the phone took off in a rather impressive arch and splashed in the middle of the flock, momentarily interrupting the fight over the bread.

Sherlock stared at the ducks for a long moment before uttering a silent _Noooo_ and springing to his feet. John was right behind him just in time to stop him from jumping into the water.

“Oh, no, you’re not!”

“John, I need to get my phone back!” Sherlock cried and tried to pull his arm free, but John spun him around and away from the bank with not much effort.

“At least take off your shoes!” John hissed under his breath, when he realized that the _‘We’ll buy another one’_ won’t be an option Sherlock will go for and pointed down at the pair of expensive black leather shoes, half covered by at least equally posh black trousers. Sherlock looked at his feet and grimaced, finally pulling his arm from John’s grasp. William, still sitting at the bank, turned around and started clapping.

“Danse, danse!”

“Yes, William, dance! Say dance again,” John almost sang. He gave Sherlock one of his Captain’s looks to cement his words, but the moment he turned towards William, his face went all sunflowers and butterflies again. He sat beside him, kissed him on the forehead and started talking some nonsense while tearing the bread to pieces. Sherlock looked at them for a long moment, not sure what to think about it, but it seemed fine. And the role of a dad suited John, he was at least sure of that. One less thing to worry himself with. Brilliant.

He took a deep breath and removed his jacket. The shoes followed shortly, along with the black socks John forgot to add to the ‘too expensive’ list of Sherlock’s wardrobe.

“That should be enough,” John interrupted him when the detective started undoing the buttons of his white silk shirt. People around were staring at him and discreetly, or not so much, shaking their heads. An old lady on the bench nearby was giving Sherlock dirty looks and John couldn’t help but glare back at her. This was far from the most disturbing thing Sherlock could be doing in public. She had no clue how lucky she was.

“And leave the trousers on, too,” John added, just to be on the safe side. “Just roll them up.”

The moment Sherlock stepped into the cold water and made the first step, clumsily waving around with his arms to balance himself on the slippery rocks, the hell broke loose. It was the most natural thing in the world to forgive Sherlock for not seeing it coming, but John should have known better. He has seen his fair share of ducks and swans after all, without deleting them as a certain consulting genius did.

He stepped into their territory and daddy swan immediately made Sherlock know that. He hissed, flapped his wings in warning and charged directly in Sherlock’s crotch. And judging from the high pitched squeak John never heard escape Sherlock’s throat before, it hit the bullseye. Sherlock jumped in the air and tried to shake the swan off with some kind of martial art move gone wrong as he slipped and landed on his behind, immersed in water up to his collarbones. He started backing away, but far less elegantly and efficiently as he would do it on firm land. The lake was swan’s territory for a reason.

“John!” he cried as he started kicking towards the swan that assaulted him again, smashing at him with his wings and the large beak. He managed to crumble on his feet and started running just to slip for the second time after only a few meters with the swan already at his heels.

John instinctively reached for the gun that wasn’t there and immediately cursed for even thinking about it at all. Instead, he grabbed a handful of decorative stones from the nearest flower bed and started throwing them at the angry bird. They were too small to make any damage, but enough to annoy the big birdie and together with his waiving and shouting Sherlock’s name, eventually shifted its attention to himself. It probably also helped that he was the closest to the cygnets now, because without much warning, the swan launched itself towards John, but stopped at the shore after John took a few steps back, with a stone in his hand, ready to throw.

The swan family eventually retreated, as did most of the crowd that gathered around to observe the spectacular performance of the consulting detective and his blogger. John hoped with all his being no one recognised them. It would certainly be a strong publicity, but not the kind he wanted.

“Still in one piece?” John asked when he returned to Sherlock. The detective was still sitting in the water, incredulously staring at the retreating flock and most probably blaming them for all the stupidity in the world that he had to deal with.

“I’ll need another shower today,” he murmured and tried to get to his feet just to slip again. At least he managed to keep his head above the water through the fearsome battle.

“Here, let me help you,” John offered, squatted at the bank’s edge and reached out with his hand as far as he could. Sherlock grabbed the offered arm and pulled himself into a crouch but as he tried to stand, he slipped again, bringing John down with him. The doctor landed on Sherlock’s chest, forcing a loud gasp out of him, that was immediately muted as the detective got completely submerged under John’s weight.

“Sherlock!” John cried and pulled Sherlock back above the surface. “Are you all right?!”

“I’ll be better as soon as you get off me,” Sherlock coughed with no malice in his voice and wiped his face with his wet and now even muddy hand. John stared at him with a remark about his inappropriate response at the tip of his tongue when he noticed he was still straddling his lap. With his full weight on top of it.

“Yes… of course … s-sorry!” John stuttered with embarrassment and leaned to the side to get off his flatmate. He massaged his forehead and, at the thought of it all, started giggling quietly. ”You reckless little shit.”

 William was, thank God, still at the bank.

“Wim, daddy wim!”

“He talks too much,” murmured Sherlock and pushed back the wet curls sticking to his forehead.

“Well, he’s your son after all,” laughed John and carefully balanced himself back on his feet. He was dripping wet and chilled to the bone. Sherlock at least had the privilege to take his shoes and jacket off.

“I don’t talk too much!”

“Yes you do, proportionally with the necessity to shut up,” John giggled and Sherlock looked up at him in offence.

“But don’t worry, I still love both of you!” John smiled, grabbed Sherlock under his armpits and pulled him up. “And don’t forget your phone.”

 

After searching for the phone for the next ten minutes, they went straight home as fast as possible and as discreetly as possible, despite leaving a wet trail behind them. Despite the physical activity, their teeth were chattering when they bursted into 221B living room and started franticly tearing their wet clothes off until they were left standing there in pants only, rubbing on the dump skin full of goose bumps to warm up. William was staring at them in amusement, but stayed quiet.

“Thank God he doesn’t know a word for this,” shivered John, gritting his teeth in a pitiful attempt to prevent them from chattering further. “Take the bathroom and try to make it quick.”

“I’m fine, you go first,” Sherlock remarked, trying too hard to also look that way, but failed miserably.

“You were longer in the water and your hair is wet. Get. In. The bathroom!” John hissed, confirming the command with his patented death glare. Sherlock shivered at the sight and moved towards the bathroom without another word. “And mind the scar on your head!”

John allowed himself a quick jump to his bedroom to grab his dressing gown and started the fire to warm up the living room. Sherlock kept his promise and reappeared in only five minutes, leaving John a moistly warm bathroom to melt into and just enough hot water to warm himself up.

After John inspected Sherlock’s wound, which was thankfully only soaked and not open, took another hundred photos of it and forced the lunch Mrs Hudson left for them down both the detectives’ and William’s throats, the two settled in their chairs in the living room, with their feet facing the comforting warmth of the fire. Sherlock dismantled his phone and left it to dry way out of his son’s reach, steepled his fingers and started staring into nothing. William was randomly running around the room and screaming gibberish for half an hour, before crawling into John’s lap with a book and an imperial order to read.

It was late afternoon when Sherlock finally popped out of his mind palace with a groan and stretched his neck, which made painful little cracking noises.

“Everything all right?” John asked, looking up from the fifth story book in a row. Sherlock glared at him incredulously, but then, as if he just remembered John was an idiot after all, dignified him with an answer.

“My neck hurts. I can’t lie on my back without putting pressure on the wound, which hurts again, by the way, and sitting up is not really a comfortable position to go to my mind palace, so right now, also my lower back hurts.”

John chuckled, but then glanced towards the sofa, and back to Sherlock, wondering.

“What if you use my lap as a pillow?”

Sherlock followed his gaze and it only took him a moment to unfold from his chair and step over the coffee table to reach the sofa. He sat in the middle and smugly tapped the seat next to him. John gathered William and a few books in his arms and followed the example. He placed the boy in Sherlock’s lap and sat on the sofa as indicated. The detective immediately swung around, bringing his legs on the opposite arm rest and slowly lowered his head in John’s lap, careful to align the wound with the space between John’s tights.

“Brilliant!” Sherlock exclaimed and adjusted the confused William more comfortably on his abdomen, ready to drift back into his mind palace.

“Oh no, you’re not. I can only have one child in my lap at a time,” John smirked and pushed the story book in Sherlock’s hands. Unintentionally, this had the potential to be some good father-son quality time and he was certainly not going to waste the opportunity.

“Don’t be ridiculous! I’m not going to make my son an idiot!” Sherlock hissed offendedly and immediately discarded the book to the floor, but John had two more ready. Sherlock looked up at him with an annoyed frown as John pushed another book in his hands, which instantly ended on top of the first one, but this time Sherlock reached under the sofa and pulled out the book about forensic entomology he started reading before their dangerous lifestyle was interrupted by the little creature that was now urging his father to entertain him. Sherlock spared John another smirk, opened the book and started reading out loud. To John’s astonishment, William didn’t seem to care what he was listening to as long as Sherlock kept showing him pictures of maggots, flies and beetles he stumbled upon while browsing the book. John looked down at both of them in amusement and a strange kind of happiness, when something caught his attention.

“You have crumbles in your hair.”

Sherlock made a noncommittal acknowledging hum in the middle of the sentence describing the moulting stages of a beetle, but didn’t move an inch to remove it.

“May I?”

“Be my guest.”

John held his breath and carefully sank his fingers into his flatmate’s curls to reach the bread crumble William managed to throw at him at the park. Sherlock just slightly leaned into the touch and it was enough encouragement for John to relax, remove the piece of bread and just for the sake of it, slid through the soft hair one more time. Even the hair of this man was posh.

Still smiling to himself, he picked up a novel and immersed himself in the story. Without even knowing, his hand found his way back in Sherlock’s curls, eliciting another murmur of approval from his flatmate that, as his own gesture, skipped John’s conscious all together.

 

He was almost through the chapter when the noises from downstairs announced the immediate arrival of their landlady. She knocked on the door but entered without waiting for their reply.

“Woohoo! Boys, are you decent?”

“Mrs Hudson, hi, thank you for the lunch. I’m sorry we didn’t notify you we went out a bit …”

“Don’t worry, my dear … Oh, look at the three of you! Such a beautiful family! I’m so happy for you two! Children really have a gift for bringing people together!”

“We are not …” John stopped himself in the middle of the sentence when his subconscious supplied him with the fact that his fingers were still tangled in Sherlock’s curls and his ears immediately took on more pinkish shades. “Never mind.”

“Ah, don’t worry, I know how it is. I just came by to bring you this chocolate spread. Mrs Turner accidentally bought it and I immediately thought of William!” She placed the jar on the coffee table and glanced over them again, joining her hands with her all-knowing smug smile John liked less and less each time.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, he’s on sugar rush most of the time without actually eating sugar,” Sherlock murmured, finally glancing at their guest.

“He means thank you,” John translated and gave Mrs Hudson one of his apologetic smiles. William looked up at her with a suspicious frown and buried his head under Sherlock’s arm, not really efficiently hiding himself from the apparently dangerous landlady.

“Of course. Maybe just a bite, everyone deserves a vice from time to time,” she said, looking back at John, who immediately started nodding furiously. She still seemed a bit taken aback by William’s reaction to her presence. “I’ll be off then, going to the theatre with Mrs Turner. Let me know if you need anything,” she added and waved them good bye as she left the room. After greeting her as nicely as possible, John immediately sent Sherlock a pointed look, but the detective was distracted by William’s sudden struggle that forced him to lower the boy on the floor. He immediately took off, running to his toy box behind Sherlock’s armchair, and emptied its content on the floor.

“That wasn’t really nice, from both of you,” John said firmly, but Sherlock dismissed him with a wave of his hand. The detective picked up his book again and John found himself thoroughly ignored. Leaving the rest of the now pointless lecture for the undefined future time, he picked up his novel again just when his phone vibrated. Reluctantly he gathered it up from the side table and checked the received message.

_John, please, I’m begging you, bring Sherlock to Renningstone road, I have a new victim of the serial killer and we just can’t work this out. Please! I’ll own you one. – GL_

John narrowed his eyes and looked down at Sherlock, who just popped an eyebrow.

“He’s begging me to bring you to the crime scene, serial killer again.”

“Not interested, the case is dull,” Sherlock murmured and looked back at the book.

“They are stuck,” John pointed out and twitched with his leg to regain Sherlock’s attention.

“Of course they are stuck, they are always stuck, that’s in their job description. I hacked into their network two days ago. They already have the name of the killer, the idiot apparently left his fingerprints all over the crime scene, they just need to bring him in,” Sherlock supplied with an uninterested tone. “He’s just badgering me because I asked him for a case when I was bored four days ago.”

“He’s _begging_ me,” John said slowly, emphasizing each word. Apparently today Sherlock needed one piece of information at a time to comprehend.

“Should this tell me something?” he murmured, turning the next page. “The case is only a three and already solved, I trust all those idiots together should be enough to find another idiot.”

“Is it actually boring or are you just trying to convince yourself because of William?”

“Of course it’s because … No, it’s dull, like I said … John, don’t make me repeat myself!”

“That’s it! I’m texting Lestrade we’re coming to the Yard tomorrow first thing in the morning, it’s too late today and I don’t really feel like going back out into the cold right now,” John said, ignoring Sherlock’s outraged frown, and covered the detective’s mouth with his hand when he tried with a verbal objection.

“What about William?” Sherlock gasped, when he pulled John’s hand away from his face and looked up at his flatmate with confusion and disapproval.

“Well, he’ll have to face our reality sooner or later. So let’s start with a simple crime scene, and once he surpasses the Met in his deductions, we can slowly move up to chasing criminals through London, fire exchanges, bomb defusing, kidnappings, poisonous chemicals … we should probably enrol him into some sort of martial art school and shooting practice as soon as possible,” John said with a smug smirk on his face, making sure his sarcasm was loud and clear, before he ruffled Sherlock’s curls again and pressed _Send_ on his phone.

 


	6. Chapter 6

It did work and John was proud of his genius although he already resigned no one would ever acknowledge it. Both Sherlock and William slept in their own beds that night and neither needed extra persuasion to do so. And almost as appreciated as a cherry on a big chocolate ice-cream cake, both seemed well rested too, when he urged them out of the bed in the morning to stay true to the promise he gave Lestrade the previous evening.

Both Holmes boys were bouncing around the flat in excitement of the promising day and John barely managed to force them put for long enough to feed them. Sherlock opened the chocolate spread Mrs Hudson left on the coffee table and despite his unnecessarily rude remark instead of a _Thank you_ , William got his fair share of the spread on a rather large piece of bread. Not surprisingly, there was no need to argue before the breakfast disappeared in a record time, but John was still a bit sceptic whether he should be happy about this.

“This… something is actually good,” mumbled Sherlock with his mouth full, scrutinizing the label on the glass jar of the spread. Full of flavour enhancers and artificial colouring, of course it was good.

“Make sure to tell this to Mrs Hudson,” John chuckled and deposited William’s travel bag on the sofa. Sherlock immediately gave him a mocking look, but any further complaints were interrupted by a massage alert from John’s phone.

"Why is he texting you now?"

"Jealous?" John smirked and searched for his phone. "Might have something to do with your shameless confession about your building blocks passion. I'm not sure if he regards you as a reliable grown up any more."

"Taking into account the frequent complaints about my childish behaviour you two share at each crime scene, I don’t see how any additional damage could be done," Sherlock babbled, staffing the last bite into his still half full mouth.

"You heard?" John squeaked, a bit embarrassed.

"I'm a sociopath, not deaf. What does he want?"

"Right ... Well, … _Good morning, don't bother coming to the Yard, we have a new corpse in Hyde Park, Curzon gate. Don't forget Sherlock_ ," John read and glanced at the consulting detective, whose eyes grew larger with each word. Apparently, the situation was much worse than assumed.

"Brilliant! Anderson destroyed the rest of the evidence anyway," Sherlock cheered and bounced from the sofa, almost tripping over William’s turtle while rushing to his bedroom. John seized William in the middle of his running around the living room and started the never ending battle to get the boy inside his jacket. This was way too much enthusiasm over a field trip to see a dead body as would be socially acceptable.

They left the flat in record time and Sherlock managed to hail the first passing cab, which probably stopped out of shear fear of Sherlock’s determination. During the ride, the two kept entertaining each other by looking out of the window. Sherlock kept naming the colours and names of the cars while William tried to repeat them with much more enthusiasm and clapping than usually. The chocolate spread worked its wonders, which was not one of the best possible news considering where they were going. Still, it was worth seeing the immense brain reduced to a gibberish correcting machine and John just had to smile.

“What? He should be able to at least recognize the car until he can take the plate number!”

Of course, there was always an ulterior motive to use as an excuse.

The cab left them at the Hyde Park corner. Following the increasing concentration of constables that were searching the perimeters for more clues, they soon reached the yellow tape in the middle of a muddy meadow, safely hidden from the curious bystanders by a thick row of trees and bushes. To preserve the footprints in the mud, wooden boards were laid on the ground to make paths around the corpse and along the footprints leaving the crime scene. When Sherlock took in the longed for scenery, not even Mycroft could prevent his immediate departure to the current centre of the universe.

“Should I check the missing children’s reports?” asked Lestrade when Sherlock stormed past him without as much as a word of greeting, or God forbid, an explanation.

“No, no need,” John smiled and almost a bit proudly joined hands behind his back as he stopped besides the DI.

“Seriously, who is crazy enough to let Sherlock babysit their son?” Lestrade chuckled and leaned a bit to the side to have a better view of the boy in Sherlock’s arms.

“He hasn’t told you?”

“Told me what?” The concern in inspector’s voice was gradually getting real and the silence stretched for a moment too long.

“William’s his son,” John finally said quietly and unsure. He shouldn’t be the one explaining this, especially if Sherlock hadn’t said anything till then. In a way John understood why he didn’t announce it to the whole word, but Lestrade was their friend and he’s been in touch with them this whole time.

“Sherlock has a son?!” Lestrade squeaked loudly and immediately looked back at Sherlock kneeling beside the corpse with eyes as big as pancake pans. His cry got the attention of the rest of the puzzled forensic team, who, not particularly inconspicuously, moved closer for easier eavesdropping.

“Yes, Sherlock has a son,” John finally resigned. The bomb was dropped, now all he had to do was wait for the explosion.

“Should I call social services?” Lestrade asked after a few long moments and John laughed. That went smooth.

“But no, seriously... how?”

“It’s a long story … and not really mine to tell,” John said and looked at Sherlock to avoid Lestrade’s open mouthed gaze. William was struggling in his arms, trying to touch the corpse as was his father doing with his free hand. The consulting detective checked the other pocket of the victim’s jacket and then abruptly stood up, carefully pulled down the glove and gave William a pointed look. After a quick consideration, he headed back towards John and Lestrade, standing at the head of a more or less frozen forensic team.

“What? Never seen a child?” Sherlock barked, but everyone just kept staring and a wave of whispers emerged from somewhere in the crowd.

“Who would want to shag you?” sergeant Donavan finally lost the battle with discretion and John barely supressed a laugh at the irony.

“John, you deal with people stuff,” Sherlock said, shoved William in his arms and disappeared back to the corpse way faster than he came there.

“Sherlock!” John cried, but Sherlock was already scrutinizing the body through his magnifying glass and ignoring the rest of the reality. He cursed to himself and slowly gazed over a herd of forensics in distress looking ready to attack him, before his eyes stopped on Greg.

“Can I explain you later?”

Lestrade nodded reluctantly and with a wave of his hand sent the team back to work.

“So, Sherlock said that the most puzzling thing of this case is why you didn’t solve it yet. Mind to brief me in?” John tried again, making sure that guilt and gratitude were loud and clear in his voice. Lestrade chuckled and pulled the notebook out of the inner pocket of his jacket.

“Serial killer, breaks their necks, this is the fifth victim, Michael F. Remington, the congressman, no connections between the victims whatsoever, apart from an almost mocking amount of fingerprints, shoe prints and even hair belonging to a certain Barry Stoner, already known to the police for minor crimes like theft and vandalism, but hasn’t been on the radar for some years now. We checked video surveillance for all four crime scenes, but we never saw him, and here I’m not talking about avoiding cameras, but being invisible all together.”

“That’s impossible,” murmured John, shifting the struggling William in his lap. The boy wanted back to the core of the excitement where his father was, now glaring at the footprints like they offended him personally.

“Have the prints been processed yet?” Sherlock barked, turning all heads in his direction.

“Yes, I have …” Anderson quickly stepped towards Sherlock, who plainly ignored everything said after the word he wanted to hear and stepped into the mud next to the shoeprints of the killer.

“What are you doing?!”

“Proving a point,” said Sherlock, stepped back to the wooden board and crouched to look closely at the impressions in the mud in front of him.

“Don’t bother with the footprints, they lead nowhere. They are the same on every crime scene and we already know the identity of the killer,” Anderson continued, took a picture of the Sherlock’s leather shoe mud impression and noted something in his notebook.

“Anderson, brilliant, I’ll recommend you!”

“Really?”

“For a transfer to the genitors department. There you may even perfect your techniques for destroying evidence.”

Before Anderson could react, the detective turned on his heels and walked along the foot trail going away from the crime scene towards the bushes closer to the park’s asphalt footpath. Further away from the corpse, the ground gradually hardened and the prints disappeared. Sherlock stepped on the soil again, making another, this time rather a superficial impression, before storming back towards the DI and John.

“Got anything for me?” called Greg, when the consulting detective got close enough.

“Male, late thirties, married, no children, a rather big dog. Office worker based on the outfit, but on an important position, probably politics, judging by the plain colours of his suit and tie. Not a robbery, the wallet, watch and suitcase are still here, nor was the victim searched for something specific. Judging by the shoeprints, he met the killer here. On his way to work, he wouldn’t risk the expensive shoes and suit, so he was tricked to come here, running, based on the distance and angle between shoeprints, probably answering a call for help from the killer. But there is something off …” Sherlock concluded his rapid deduction with a quieter whisper.

“Brilliant!” escaped John’s mouth before his mind even registered it and Lestrade gave him a knowing smile, before he pulled out his notebook again.

“You were right, the victim is Michael F. Remington, but based on the previous victims, his murder had no connection to his job,” murmured the DI, while franticly writing down the keywords he caught from Sherlock’s rapid deduction.

“Who?”

“The congressman Remington, had been in the media last month for that new public transport law.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed like Greg just told him something absurd. Of course Sherlock wouldn’t know parliament people if they smacked him in the face.

“Daddy!” William finally cried, struggling so hard John barely managed to retain him in his arms. He handed the boy to Sherlock, but apparently that was only half of the deal, because now William wanted to the ground.

“Let’s move away from the crime scene,” suggested Lestrade, smiling up to his ears at the sight of the little boy. “Is he really your son? He does look like you to be honest.”

“Why is everybody so dense?” Sherlock hissed and lowered William to the ground when they reached an asphalted footpath far enough from the crime scene. He instructed William to hold to his coat and started cleaning the mud from his shoe with a grimace.

“No, nothing wrong, I just never imagined … How come I never heard of this?” hurried Lestrade, still smiling at the boy who was eyeing him cautiously from behind his father’s coat.

“If it makes you feel better, I didn’t know either,” said John apologetically and looked expectantly at his flatmate, who just shuddered and dismissed his plea for an explanation, so the doctor continued. “His theoretical wife died and he can have the kid if he wants. We kind of have William on probation right now.”

But Greg just kept staring. And John didn’t blame him at all.

“How come I never heard about that either?”

“It was a political marriage ten years ago and Sherlock didn’t want anything to do with it. Listen, it’s a long story that requires a beer in a pub. Do you have time next week?”

“Ten years ago … Jesus!” the DI repeated and a black shadow of a horrifying realisation crossed his face. It was plainly clear the DI had like a ton of additional questions, but he successfully repressed them with a sigh.

“Fine, next week,” he resigned and turned back to Sherlock, all business again: “You said that there was something off with the crime scene?”

“The killer breaks their necks, which would suggest a crime of passion, but the victims are random and the break is done with surgical precision, so a professional. Then again, a professional wouldn’t leave evidence behind, especially not whole handprints. This would imply the evidence was planted there on purpose, so whoever you identified, is not your real killer. The only question that remains is how did the killer manage to plant this evidence so perfectly,” stormed out of Sherlock at a tremendous speed. “I need to see the photos from the other crime scenes.”

“Couldn’t you have arsed yourself with this three days ago? Would have saved me a lot of work... and embarrassment. I’ll have the photos ready, you can also have a look at the bodies at Bart’s, I’ll let them know you’re coming,” sighed the inspector and started searching for his phone.

“Victims are random, not important. We’ll go to Yard immediately!” Sherlock blabbed, still high on his own genius.

“Christ, Sherlock, at least try to pretend!” whispered John, but Sherlock only gave him one of his _‘you’re an idiot’_ looks, before he turned back to Lestrade with a grimace of superiority.

“We’ll need some time to finish here, so can we say at the Yard in two hours?” Thank God Greg was used to this.

“I said I want to see …”

“Two hours sounds great, just enough time to go home, change the nappy and have lunch,” John interrupted and started looking around to get the two boys out of the park before Sherlock would work himself in one of his tantrums and made an even bigger scene. “Where’s William?”

Sherlock’s incredulous gaze immediately dropped to his side, where William was clenching his coat just a minute ago, and then turned around just to confirm the little boy was nowhere in sight.

“He couldn’t have gone far,” he murmured and dropped down into a crouch, but there were no footprints or any other indications of where the boy disappeared to.

“Can you deduce where he went?” John squeaked, feeling the panic and adrenalin start to cloud his mind as he looked around himself one more time.

“No, there is not much logic in child’s reasoning. He could have followed a dog somewhere for all I know, he seemed to like them yesterday,” said Sherlock and took a deep breath. How could he be so calm?!

“Oh my God, we lost our child,” John whispered as he turned around so no one would hear him. He felt like the most irresponsible person on the planet and immediately made a vow to never again roll his eyes on people telling him stories about how they lost their children in supermarkets, JUST LET THEM FIND WILLIAM!

“Don’t be melodramatic, I just need to find out which way he went, everything is under control,” said Sherlock, sounding more annoyed than worried, and pulled out his phone.

Everything was under control?!

“Are you nuts?!” Ok, scratch that, Sherlock was borderline mad at the best of times.

“Has anyone seen a one year old boy wandering around alone?” Lestrade shouted towards his team, but the nearest constables just looked at each other and shook their heads.

Sherlock turned away from the group with another eye roll and pressed his lips in a tight line as he placed the phone against his ear. It only took one ring.

_“Sherlock, brother dear. To what I own the pleasure of your not so cherished gesture of calling?”_

“I need you to check the CCTV footage of Hyde park corned for the last ten minutes,” Sherlock hissed, careful not to make it sound as a request, or, even worse, a plea.

_“You’re a constant surprise, Sherlock, I thought it would take you only three days to lose him, but then again, you didn’t leave the apartment until yesterday, which makes it two days. I was wrong either way, so I suppose congratulations are in order after all.”_

“Spare me your impeccable humour. Which way?” Sherlock sounded bored and John swore under his breath one more time.

_“Follow the path you’re on towards the centre of the park and left at the first intersection. Keep an eye out for an old lady with a long grey coat and may I …”_

“Coat, of course!” Sherlock hissed and tucked his phone back into his pocket. He turned on his heels and darted towards the centre of the park with all dramatics and coat swinging that came so naturally to him. John and Greg followed suit.

Sherlock spotted the lady in question the moment he turned left and a sigh of relief escaped him when his eyes dropped down to the small figure in a blue jacked that was shambling behind her, holding the hem of her long coat. She probably didn’t even realize he was following her, and her painfully slow walking with the aid of a walking cane made the whole escape a lot easier.

When he reached them, William was ready for an all-out crying roar and immediately grabbed Sherlock’s coat and hid behind his father’s leg, sobbing. The old lady finally turned, oblivious to the preparations for the end of the world that were on the way a minute ago, gave them a mocking shake of her head and proceeded with her day like nothing had happened.

“Thank God,” escaped John, as he looked up to the sky for further appreciation of the divine intervention and started giggling silently. Now they were going home, where he can have himself a good freak out in private, followed by some therapeutic tea-making. Any other suggestions won’t even be considered.

“So, I take he’s a handful,” Lestrade chuckled and gave John an understanding pat on the shoulder.

“Both, not just William, those two together are a disaster waiting to happen,” John giggled and waved Sherlock to grab the boy so they could head home.

 

“So … what exactly are we looking for at the Yard?” asked John, when Sherlock pushed William in his lap and assumed his thinking pose. The taxi ride this time was much calmer, since the chocolate wore off. After the exquisite lunch Mrs Hudson prepared for them, John couldn’t blame William for resting leisurely against his chest, only occasionally pointing at something outside the window. Sherlock of course refused the food, being on a case and other ‘slowing him down’ excuses, but at least he ate a few bites that John’s fork-airplane thing brought to his mouth instead of William’s.

“Handprints, of course,” murmured Sherlock, with an annoyed sub tone of _‘shut up, I’m thinking’_.

“Of course,” murmured John, silently cursing the _‘we both know what’s going on’_ look on the detective’s face, and rather shifted his attention to William, who at some point started fiddling with the bottoms of his bottom-up shirt. He was touching one at the time and mumbling something that could, with a lot of imagination, sound like numbers.

When they finally arrived at the Yard, Sherlock nothing less than flew through the front door and up the stairs to the third floor, where he loudly exploded into the offices of Lestrade’s team, demanding all crime scene photos.

“The freak is here,” Donavan announced and made herself scarce when Sherlock dumped the box with files and photos on an empty desk near hers. When John lowered William to the ground, the boy suspiciously scanned the surroundings and then dashed to his father’s side, urging him to pick him up. Instead, Sherlock gave him a crime scene photo and after the initial confusion, the boy slowly started babbling something and turning the picture around, just like he saw Sherlock.

“I see the training of your prodigy next in line is going smoothly,” Lestrade said smugly when he joined them with another thick folder full of photos from the last crime scene. “Got any ideas?”

“Four so far,” murmured Sherlock without tearing his eyes from the photo of a dusted handprint on a laptop that was found next to the first two victims. “Does this handprint look abnormally smudged to you? Of course it does, but why?”

“It is smudged,” Greg confirmed and John nodded in agreement, “but why abnormally?”

“The palm print is distorted in a different way than the fingers,” Sherlock murmured with an eye roll and fished the pile for more handprint photos, picking out the most obvious ones. The heavier the lifted object was, the more disfigured were the prints. 

“Shaking hands?” Lestrade suggested, but apparently the idea was too stupid to earn even the ‘ _you’re an idiot’_ look in acknowledgement. Instead, Sherlock grabbed and unplugged the nearest computer tower, wiped it clean and started placing his hands on the surface and lifting the tower with different grips and hand motions.

“Dust the prints!” he barked towards Anderson, who was busy trying to get William’s attention by offering him different objects from his office desk and failing miserably. The boy was just incredulously staring at him, safely clutched to his father’s leg and guarding the now crumpled crime scene photo with fierce determination.

Anderson huffed in annoyance, but complied anyway. Computer case dusted, Sherlock started scrutinizing the black patterns and John could swear he heard the gears whirring in his head.

“Got something?”

“No,” Sherlock stretched the word into a whine and steepled his finger under his chin as he dropped himself on the chair. “Shut up and leave, I need to go to my mind palace!”

John sighed and dragged Greg away where they could chat undisturbed. He tried to take William too, but the boy was permanently attached to his father’s leg. Well, at least until the room got quiet and boring. Cautiously at first, William started fiddling with the things he could reach on the table. In the end, all it took was William grabbing the latex glove Anderson left on the table and staffing his tiny hand inside for Sherlock’s eyes to almost pop out of his head.

“The Ed Gain killer, of course!” Sherlock exclaimed suddenly, scaring half of the office half to death. “Oh, this case, this killer! He’s smart! No! She’s smart!”

“Sherlock!” John hissed and tried to poke his flatmate out of his full deduction mode.

“It was so obvious!” the detective went on without sparing John a glance, “The shallow footprints, the smudged handprints, why you never saw your killed on the video surveillance! Brilliant!”

“Mind an explanation for the rest of us idiots?” asked Greg, making a step away from the too excited consulting detective. It looked like things would start flying around any minute now.

“The shoe prints were from male boots, size 42, but they were shallow, much shallower than mine, so even considering the difference in the surface of the sole, someone lighter was wearing them, certainly not the man the boots belonged to originally. A really thin and small man, or, more probably, a woman, based on the position of the prints. That’s also why you never saw your killer on the CCTV footage, you were looking for the wrong gender altogether! And the handprints! Genius! She probably killed Barry … something… a while ago, took his shoes, hair and most importantly, the skin from his hands and made gloves out of them! Just like the serial killer Ed Gain did! That’s why the prints are smudged; the skin-gloves were rotating around her hands when she took hold of anything and the heavier the object was, the less grip she had!” Sherlock almost sang and would probably be jumping around in excitement if William hadn’t reattached himself to his leg. “Recheck the surveillance footage and look for a woman caring a bag big enough for field boots.”

“You heard him!” Greg shouted and as his team got to work, he turned back to the three of them. “So, got time for a ‘thank you’ coffee?”

Before Sherlock could express his feeling about the invitation, John accepted it and dragged all of them into Lestrade’s office. And yes, they had that beer requiring talk right away.

 

“Why did you force me through the whole ordeal?! My cerebral gyri started straightening by your _‘I’ll try to make it short_ ’ comment!” Sherlock shuddered as he lowered William to the ground in their living room and took off his coat.

“It’s your story, if _I_ had to explain it, the least you could do is sit through it,” John huffed a bit annoyed and took of his shoes before catching William to undress him too. “At least now you have Lestrade on your side, in case a police intervention will be necessary in the future.”

“I should have taped you and put it on your blog. If someone else asks if he’s really mine I swear I’ll hang a paternity test results around his neck!”

John started laughing and Sherlock retreated into his bedroom with a confused frown to change into a t-shirt and his pyjama trousers. It was now William’s turn to suffer through a nappy change and after the dishes were washed, kitchen cleaned and dirty laundry gathered in the basket in the bathroom, John paused in the living room, not sure where to start.

Sherlock was sprawled on the sofa, reading another book on child psychology and ignoring John’s pointed looks. The floor was covered with William’s stuff, a rather pointless chore to bother with, there were also some pictures and files scattered around that would find their way into the trash bin the moment Sherlock finds another pass time, but he would leave them for now, too. The three plates from their breakfast were still on the coffee table, along with two tea mugs and William’s empty tea bottle. He could start there.

“Where’s the jar of chocolate spread?” John asked when he found the lid under one of the plates. Sherlock looked towards the coffee table with disinterest.

“William was playing around there ten minutes ago,” he announced and turned back to his book.

“And where is William now?”

Sherlock gestured towards the wall behind the sofa and John followed the clue with a loud sigh. He indeed found William, covered with brown spread and his hand deep in the jar. The boy started laughing when he saw John and slapped another brown handprint on the wall as a desperate whine escaped the doctor’s throat. Next to a dozen handprints, there were some rather artistic crayon scrabbles from God knows when and two golf balls John didn’t even want to know where they came from, now covered in chocolate as well. Apparently, he was a creative soul in urgent need of drawing paper. But that was all right. Where the hell was he supposed to find another wallpaper like this?!

The doorbell rang and John closed his eyes in desperation. The last thing he needed right now was to deal with a client.

“It’s Mycroft,” announced Sherlock as he would be reading his flatmate’s mind and unfolded himself from the sofa, already looking as bored as if he had spent the day watching paint dry.

Mycroft stepped into their living room a moment later, and a contented smirk spread over his face when he took in the situation with a quick glance.

“Having fun?” he asked smugly and looked from Sherlock to John, now holding chocolate covered William who finally calmed down when he saw his uncle.

“Hello, Mycroft, please take a sit. Can I offer you something to drink?” John said quickly in an unsuccessful attempt to cover his embarrassment. Mycroft had an impeccable timing as always.

“A glass of water would be nice, thank you.”

“Let’s make this quick, shall we?” interrupted Sherlock and extended an imperious hand towards his brother as John retreated to the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water and at least provisionally clean William’s hands. Mycroft allowed himself another self-satisfied smile and lowered a silver locket on a short chain into his brother’s palm.

“Beaten by a baby,” he murmured contentedly as he sat down in Sherlock’s armchair and accepted the glass of water John provided.

“What is that?”

“The smallest tracking device on Earth, hidden in a preposterously big piece of junk jewellery,” Sherlock explained as he opened the locket. Emma’s picture was inside, along with engraved William’s initials and his date of birth. He immediately gave Mycroft a mocking look as he closed the locket with all disgust he managed.

“Why would you need that?”

 “A precaution, of course, for the next time William feels like exploring the world on his own,” Mycroft said with an amused voice and took a sip from his glass.

“I’m pretty sure we learned our lesson,” John squeaked in embarrassment. Of course Mycroft saw the whole think, he probably also saved the recordings for some entertainment at the next Christmas dinner.

“You have indeed,” Mycroft said with delight in his voice, “especially since this was Sherlock’s personal request.”

John looked with confusion towards the detective, who already took his violin out of the case.

“Let me know when you’ll feel like you inflicted your presence long enough so I can remind you, again, where the door is,” Sherlock murmured, slipping as much dullness in his words as he managed.

“Try not to make any scenes for the next 36 hours. Actually, try not to make anything at all. I would hate to go through another round of legal disputes,” said Mycroft with a sigh and pushed himself up from the chair.

“Your concern is inspiring,” hissed Sherlock and positioned the violin under his chin. Mycroft rolled his eyes, nodded towards John in salute and hurried out of the flat as the dying-cat noises emerged from the instrument.

As soon as the door downstairs closed, the squeaking turned into a nice, cheerful melody. Sherlock moved to stand next to the window and John finally took William to the bathroom to clean him properly. He just loved those spontaneous bursts of domestic devotion. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: child kidnapping
> 
> Nothing bad happens, though ;)

When John came down the next morning, Sherlock and William were already on the sofa, sitting in front of Sherlock’s laptop. While the older one tried to read, the younger one kept alternating between randomly hitting the disabled keyboard and pointing out things on the screen, talking animatedly during the whole process. William was dressed, in a fresh nappy and judging from the two empty plates on the coffee table, also feed. Sherlock was finally getting the hold of the whole baby business and John felt like a proud mama. Not sure whose mama, but proud nevertheless.

"What is pillow talk?"

"Morning," replied John and headed towards the bathroom.  _Wait, what?_ The confused expression was apparently enough prompt for Sherlock to put on an annoyed frown and proceed with the explanation.

"I was reading a forum about baby sleeping habits and they abruptly switched to a discussion about how they asked their partners if they wanted children, describing hundreds of different scenarios, out of which one got mentioned quite frequently, which brings me back to my initial question. What is pillow talk?"

“That’s the conversation about whatsoever that people have after they had slept together,” John answered, not sure if he should start laughing or crying. Sherlock seemed serious.

“So like when I came to sleep in your room and we talked.”

“No, slept together as in had sex.”

“Although, I was lying on the sofa when I asked you if you wanted to have children, so it was actually sofa talk …”

“No, Sherlock, we never had sex.”

“… but then again, my head was on the pillow at that time, so, in fact, it was pillow talk,” Sherlock trailed off, immersed in whatever he was reading once again.

“Great,” murmured John, incredulously stared at his mad flatmate for a moment longer, and then disappeared into the bathroom before Sherlock got even stranger ideas. Thank God no one heard that.

 

“So, what do you want to do today?” John asked when he lowered himself in his chair, a plate with a warm toast in his lap.

“I was actually thinking about honouring Mycroft’s suggestion…” Sherlock murmured, still scrutinizing his laptop. William dismissed internet as boring and left his father’s side on behalf of unacceptably ordered books on the shelves. 

“Which would be doing … what?”

“Nothing.”

“And we all know how that ends when you’re involved. We could go shopping … No, don’t look at me like that! Sooner or later we’ll have to buy new stuff and clothes, might as well do a recon on enemy territory. And lunch at Angelo’s, how does this sound?”

“There are people in the shopping centres,” Sherlock spit out with disgust and closed the lead of his laptop. “I’ll call my tailor, he’ll take care of everything.”

“Are you going to make him into Mini-Me?”

“What?”

“Nothing, just get ready, we’re leaving in ten.”

 

Of course it took almost one hour before John bullied Sherlock into the cab, which took them to Westfield. The cab left them in front of a massive mall and Sherlock’s eyes almost popped out from horror.

“You’ve never been to a shopping centre?” John asked incredulously as he pushed Sherlock towards the entrance. It was a workday, but there were far more people than considered healthy even for John’s standards.

“No, places like this are sanctuaries of stupidity,” Sherlock shivered when he suddenly found himself in the middle of the main atrium. There were people all around them, chatting, laughing, children were running around and screaming, people shouting from the upper floor to their friends on the ground and on top of it, announcements over the loudspeakers about some spectacular sales it would be a crime to miss. Sherlock took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders and put on a smug and superior expression, which was specifically designed to encourage people to avoid them. It was almost working on John, too. “Let’s first go buy some nicotine patches.”

John chuckled and stopped by the information point to get a map of the mall, before he dragged Sherlock to the nearest store with children clothing. Almost too bright rainbow colours, a strange sweet smell and a piano lullaby hit their sense as they entered and William immediately started squealing and clapping when he saw the toy decorations on the shelves. All young or soon to be mums and shop assistants turned towards them with amused and curious looks and John felt the heat rise up his neck to give a bit more pinkish colours to his cheeks. Sherlock grimaced and turned to leave, but the shop assistant was quicker.

“Welcome in our shop. How can I help you?”

“Huh, emm, could you just show us where can we find clothes for a one year old boy?” John asked awkwardly, even more self-conscious then he felt the first time he asked a girl out in high school and failed miserably. Sherlock took a deep breath and immediately earned John’s elbow in his ribs.

“Of course, please, follow me,” she said with the sweetest smile possible. “He’s such an angel!”

“You don’t have a clue, especially when he needs to eat, a bath, a fresh nappy or sleep,” Sherlock murmured to himself as she went on, still trying to keep his deductions to himself. John didn’t even bother sighing any more.

“He’s a bit bigger than an average one year old, so I would advise you to rather check the section for eighteen months or even more. In this way he’ll be able to wear them a bit longer.”

“That would be great, thank you,” hurried John as she stopped near seemingly random shelves and gestured to the neatly arranged piles of clothes.

“If you could be more specific with what you’re looking for, I can …”

“Thank you, we’ll have a look for ourselves first,” John hurried and dismissed her with one of his best smiles of apology and guilt. The moment she was far enough, the words erupted out of Sherlock like a nuclear explosion.

“Thirty-four years old, no children, two cats with long coat, a white and a black one, cheating on her boyfriend with two other men and not trying to hide it at all. He must be blind or extremely stupid, since she obviously isn’t rich, working in a clothing shop for children, while not having any children of her own, so do me a favour and don’t go asking her any advice concerning William. Or the clothing, for that matter, that blouse she’s wearing is preposterous! Regular customer at a manicure saloon, been there this morning while coming from one of her lovers, probably …”

“Sherlock, please, not here!” begged John when tugging at the detective’s sleeve proved ineffective. “We’ll be coming here a lot!”

“I’m certainly not. She’s …”

“Sherlock, behave!”

Sherlock huffed in annoyance and finally grabbed the toy from the shelf William was trying to reach this whole time. The shop assistant returned to the small group of vigorously chatting women and the four of them shamelessly started sparing them glances and giggling.

“I know she’s stupid and I’m perfectly aware they’re talking about us and yes, it’s annoying and embarrassing, but suck it up. It probably doesn’t happen very often than a man comes in here, let alone two… Oh, God, they must think we’re a couple!” John blushed and quickly turned away. Now he was the one who wanted to leave immediately and never come back.

“I hope you’re aware two men cannot conceive a child,” Sherlock murmured and narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing John’s face for any signs of deception.

“Oh, God, no, I mean, yes, I know, but that was hardly the point here,” John squeaked, unable to turn in any direction without facing someone judging him. The four women were still giggling on their behalf. “Let’s just look at the clothes.”

Sherlock smirked and turned towards the piles of clothes just to grimace again. It was so ... colourful. And as just to make a point, John pulled out a shirt that looked like a terminally ill unicorn vomited rainbows over it.

“This looks nice.”

“John, don’t make this even more tedious on purpose.”

“Fine. What about this one? Only one colour,” John asked as he pulled out a red shirt with a dinosaur in an airplane on its front.

“A dinosaur? Really?” asked Sherlock incredulously and shifted William to his hip to shuffle through the pile with his free hand.

“Ok, then what about this, no dinosaurs,” he said as he pulled out a yellow shirt with violet sleeves and a picture of a staffed bear in the front.

“This is ridiculous! How can they put those colours together?”

“I think they go together nicely,” said John, pointedly ignoring Sherlock’s words, and held the shirt in front of William.

“They are complementary. I’ll get a headache just by thinking about it!”

“Well then just don’t … fine. And what’s wrong with this one?”

It was a plain blue shirt with a green Volkswagen beetle on the front. Sherlock stared at the shirt like it offended him personally, but couldn’t find a thing to criticize.

“It’s so … blue,” he said eventually.

“Are you kidding me?” cried John, but put the shirt aside anyway. He browsed through the shirts a bit longer, but when it became clear Sherlock won’t run out of insults for children clothing design trends any time soon, John gave him William’s travel bag and sent both of them to the shopping center’s playground. What disaster could he arrange there, right?

Right …

When John returned one hour later with three small shopping bags for William, a new shirt for himself and two packs of nicotine patches for Sherlock, he found the detective genius sitting in the middle of the playground, surrounded by a buzzing group of children of various ages, running around according to Sherlock’s directions. _What the …_?

He instinctively looked around but no one seemed concerned about whatever his flatmate was up to. The moms siting on the benches around the playground were chatting vigorously and not sparing Sherlock more than a glance as they routinely scanned the small crowd for their offspring. William was sitting next to him, nomming on a cereal biscuit Sherlock found in the baby bag. Everything seemed all right, but John knew better.

He approached cautiously and squatted next to his flatmate. The children were running all around the playground, collecting the big rubbery blocks of various colours and seemed to be building a wall across the playground with Sherlock being the constructions supervisor.

“Sherlock, what are you doing?”

“An experiment,” murmured Sherlock without getting distracted from his tasks.

“An experiment?!” squeaked John and immediately lowered his head not to attract attention.

“Shhh,” Sherlock shushed him. “Don’t ruin it.”

“You’re doing an experiment on someone else’s children … Oh God, tell me what … no, actually, don’t, I don’t want to know,” he murmured exasperatedly and let himself drop on the soft pavement of the playground. He really should know better by now.

“In the book on psychological development they said that children with different character types and personality traits respond differently to certain educational approached and punishments, so I wanted to test it before using it on William. Interestingly, the most effective method, independently of their character type, was if I suggested telling their mothers something I deduced about them. I’ll have to write to the editors of the book, they didn’t mention it and it’s certainly a useful tip for a parent.”

“Oh my God Sherlock, how old are you?” murmured John and immediately struggled back on his feet. He had to get Sherlock out of there before anyone noticed that he was blackmailing five year olds.

“What does my age have to do with this?”

“Nothing, just get up,” John whispered and swung the baby bag over his shoulder. He picked William up and collected Sherlock’s coat that lay abandoned thrown over the playground boundary.

“I’m not done yet!” protested Sherlock as he gathered himself from the ground and run after John, leaving the children positively relieved. John looked at him for a long moment when the subtle shakes of his body developed into full blown giggles.

“You utter git! And here I thought you would die of boredom before this week was over,” John chuckled and gave the incredulous Sherlock a friendly slap on his shoulder. “Let’s go, I think this was enough for a trial run.”

 

“It really is interesting that you can achieve a wanted response from anyone as long as you determine the character type and approach accordingly. I could use this for interrogations,” Sherlock continued his endless rumble as they reached Hyde park and the noise of the busy streets finally left the background of John’s mind. “Once I figure out which character type William is, I can design a …”

“You’re not doing any psychological experiments on our son,” he mumbled for what felt like the hundredth time in the last hour.

“It’s not an experiment, it’s a nurturing approach which will allow me to control him without too much fuss and screaming. Those kids were so tedious!”

“Don’t bother, he will outsmart you as soon as he’s able to talk and you won’t even know it,” John chuckled and stopped to wait for William. The boy left the pavement to chase a grasshopper through the lawn.

“I certainly hope so, but you should give him at least a decade,” Sherlock said with a smirk before he walked after William to catch the poor insect so William could take a look at it and they could move on. William’s lunch time was approaching with no consideration for the great time they were having.

“Well, he already is the new master manipulator of the team,” John said with a certain kind of satisfaction. Sherlock squatted near William, but apparently the grasshopper outsmarted him too, as he suddenly jumped forward and immediately reached out with his hand once more, still not catching his pray.

“No, he’s not!” Sherlock called towards John almost offended as he got back to his feet and started dissecting the grass. William shambled behind him and suddenly pointed to the grass on his side. “Daddy, isect!”

Sherlock immediately turned and as the poor animal made another jump to save its life, the detective launched himself face first in the grass, trapping the bug under his large hands. He picked up the insect with surgical precision, careful not to hurt it, and held it in front of William.

“This is a grasshopper,” Sherlock said, still sitting on the lawn and trying to keep William’s hands away from the insect. “Touch it really carefully, you could hurt it.”

“Gasopel!” William repeated and carefully touched the animal with one finger.

“Grasshopper.”

“Gasopel!” William cheered again and run towards John. “Daddy, gasopel!”

Sherlock let the unfortunate insect go and returned to the pavement, where William met him with enthusiastic clapping at the new learned world.

“He is smart, but he has a long way to go to manage to manipulate me!” Sherlock went on, unable to drop the subject until his wounded ego got his revenge. They slowly resumed their walk through the park.

“He has you wrapped around his little finger and you crumble under his wishes in less than a minute from the moment they are expressed so don’t flatter yourself too much.”

“He won’t shut up otherwise!”

“Exactly! Who’s the boss now?”

Sherlock frowned and fell silent. William was shambling in front of them and naming things he pointed at, looking back at John and Sherlock after each jabber word and cheered at the praise he got in return. John was amazed how the boy opened up since the first day they took him in. From a shy, cautious baby to the curious, confident almost show off. It felt like they had him since ever, like he grew up in their care. He somehow couldn’t really imagine not having him around anymore. And he adored Sherlock, looked up to him, as Sherlock most certainly loved him at least as much. And that, in John’s eyes, was the most beautiful thing this family’s tragedy could turn into.

“John, can you be the mother?” Sherlock suddenly smashed into John’s daydreaming.

“Sorry, what?”

“Otherwise I cannot use the _I’ll tell your mother_ statement.”

 

It was one o’clock sharp when they finally arrived at Angelo’s, an hour past William’s usual lunch time and the boy was so hungry they had to give him another cookie so he wouldn’t munch on Sherlock’s scarf. The small bell on the door announced their arrival and Angelo glanced from the kitchen.

“Sherlock, John, my friends! Benvenuti! I thought you walked out on me!” he called from the kitchen as he gathered two menus and a candle. Sherlock and John made themselves comfortable at their usual table and the detective settled William in his lap, covering both with a napkin. Keeping the suit clean seemed like a wise idea.

The initial shock on Angelo’s face when he finally walked into the dining room was at least as big as the joy upon whichever conclusion he came up with.

“Congratulations!” he cheered and rushed to their table. “You adopted such a lovely boy!”

“We haven’t …”

“And he even looks like the perfect mixture of the two of you, with those curls and almost blond hair!” Angelo continued, ignoring John as always. “I’m so happy for you two! Ah, such a special occasion! Anything on the menu, whatever you want, on the house, for all three of you!”

“We haven’t adopted!” John tried again, but the Italian was fixated on William.

“Such a lovely boy! This realy deserves a celebration! Anything on the menu, I cook it for you myself! Just let me know what you decide!”

“We’ll take the usual, just make it a bit more, we’ll see what William prefers,” Sherlock said and pushed the candle away before the boy could grab it. Angelo gave them the thumbs up and disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Why didn’t you tell him that William is your son?” John asked more annoyed than puzzled.

“Avoiding another tedious explanation. He’ll figure it out eventually,” Sherlock said and started readying the menu out loud while showing William the pictures of the dishes he named.

“Well, he certainly figured out that he looks a bit like both of us. Why would he even say that?”

“Basically you just have to select an egg or sperm donor that looks like your partner,” he murmured and turned the page of the menu. “People usually do it to avoid the same tedious conversations I’m trying to get around now. Emma may have looked a bit like you in the grand picture, nothing to worry yourself with.”

“Perfect,” John chuckles and looked away in embarrassment and quickly changed the line of thoughts. “You sure know a lot about artificial insemination for someone who was avoiding the reality till recently.”

“Well, they made me wait in the fertility clinic for two hours. At some point I started reading the brochures that were laying around, otherwise my brain would explode. I swear, the more far along with the pregnancy they were, the more tedious questions they came up with. And they just wouldn’t shut up! I swear I could smell the hormones in the air!” Sherlock hissed and then quickly cleared the table as the waiter brought a loaded plate of pasta for John, another with fish and chips for him and a smaller, empty plate for William. Sherlock transferred a part of his meal to the small plate and prompted John to do the same.

William was eating like they haven’t feed him for months, grabbing the fork from Sherlock’s hand and bringing it to his mouth, although he usually lost half of the food half the way from the plate. He was getting better and better at it and John was hoping he would be eating on his own by the end of the month. In that way they wouldn’t have to animate him that much and Sherlock would lose another excuse for not eating himself. This time, though, he was doing a great job clearing his plate.

The quiet Italian music in the background was slowly drawn out by upset murmurs and John turned to the mute television in the corner, showing a reporter in front of an overturned London double-decker, half buried into another bus.

“Angelo, can you please turn the volume on?” John asked. Angelo complied and the whole restaurant turned to the TV.

_“… Still don’t know the cause of the accident but for now everything points to a mechanical failure…”_

“Jesus! That’s on Grove End Road!” John cried, “That’s practically around the corner!”

_“… just informed us unfortunately another person died. That’s already four casualties and let’s just hope it stays that way. Eight people are still in critical condition and have already been transported to the hospital along with more than twenty other people that need medical care …”_

“It has to be at the clinic I work at!” John murmured and a bit nervously shifted on his chair. 

“They can manage,” Sherlock said quickly, getting a bit tense himself, right at the moment when John’s phone went off.

“Dr. Watson,” he answered immediately and Sherlock jumped on his chair.

“You can’t go!”

“They need me!” John hissed back, covering the phone with his hand. “How bad is it? … Oh God …”

“ _I_ need you!” cried Sherlock, looking like a terrified child. John’s resolve wavered considerably, but they needed him more then the only consulting drama queen did at the moment, so the answer was obvious.

“Yes, of course, I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

“No! You can’t leave me alone with William! I can’t … I don’t …”

“You’ll be fine,” John said with his soothing doctor voice while collecting his debris from the table and staffing it in his pockets. “You’ve been alone with him before.”

“Exactly!”

“Just go straight home and look after him, you’ll be fine. Try to clean the flat a bit, but don’t overdo it, otherwise it won’t be credible anymore,” John chuckled. “Ask Mrs Hudson to prepare dinner, or even better, to teach you how to prepare something. I’ll try to be back as soon as possible. If something goes really, really wrong, call me or Mycroft or ask Mrs Hudson, she’ll know what to do."

“John, please!”

“And don’t go around seeking out things to set on fire!” John added cheerfully, plainly ignoring Sherlock’s whines and waved _bye-bye_ to William, who immediately waved back. He run out of the restaurant before Sherlock could even think about throwing a tantrum, leaving him with William, who was happily messing up the table with the food that was left on his plate.

“Would you like a desert, or a coffee?” offered Angelo, when he came to clean the table. Sherlock just gave him his most miserable look of an abandoned puppy and barely refrained from ordering a portion of something to take home for dinner. He’ll just ask Mrs Hudson, she’ll be delighted to help.

“Can’t stay away from each other not even for a minute, can you?” Angelo grinned and slapped Sherlock on his shoulder. “I’m sure he’ll be back just in time for bed!”

 

It was half past midnight when John finally dragged himself out of the cab in front of 221B. He was exhausted and the only things he was capable of thinking of were a warm shower and his bed. There were way more people that needed medical attention than the twenty-eight mentioned on the TV and they lost another one on the operation table due to severe internal bleeding. On top of everything, it was straight out upsetting treating the broken arm of a small child and his mind kept escaping to William. He would probably go mad if something happened to him and he ended up holding and soothing the three year old girl until her father arrived to check on her and her mother, who was still in critical care. It was bad enough assembling Sherlock back together after some reckless one-on-one with a serial killer or a crazy equivalent.

He locked the door behind him. The light at Mrs Hudson’s was still on, but the building was quiet, so he crawled upstairs as silently as possible and switched on the light in the empty living room. It was clean. Everything was so unbelievably clean and tidy and it even smelled so fresh that he almost turned around and apologized for entering the wrong flat. Sherlock went beyond himself.

But he still didn’t overdue it, of course, since it was Mrs Hudson’s dinner that was waiting for him in the kitchen. He quickly staffed a few spoons in his mouth and washed everything down with the already cold tea, before he went to his room and changed in fresh clothes that didn’t smell like hospital disinfectant and vomit. But before he would drop dead in his bed, he wanted to soothe his urge to check on the two Holmes boys.

He went back downstairs on his tiptoes and slowly opened the door of Sherlock’s bedroom. The room was dark and it took him a moment to register that the detective’s bed was empty. The duvet was drawn back and William’s turtle was lying on the bed, so he hopefully turned around to the untouched crib. Puzzled, he fished his phone out of his pocket and sent a message.

_Where are you?_

_At Mrs Hudson’s, she insisted I come down for tea, which apparently included chatting. Tedious. – SH_

_You know William should be sleeping at this hour, not having tea, right?_

_He IS sleeping, surprisingly quietly actually –SH_

Sherlock making jokes? He might be a genius, but this was definitely not his area.

_Not funny, Sherlock._

_What are you talking about? –SH_

Oh dear God, not again!

No no no no!

The air was sucked out of him and his brain went offline. Before he managed to stop franticly swirling around himself, Sherlock was panting at the door of the bedroom.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know!” cried John and both men scrambled for the living room and started searching for the boy.

“I don’t understand! He didn’t cry, I heard nothing! He always made those annoying sounds when he woke up!” Sherlock cried while dashing around the living room on all four, checking under various furniture William could squeeze under.

“He’s not in the kitchen either,” John gasped and run for the bathroom even if both doors were closed. Sherlock checked his bedroom for the third time before he collapsed on the floor, lifeless.

“I’ll check my bedroom, you go downstairs, he couldn’t have gone far on his own,” John ordered and run past his flatmate. The soldier in him took over completely.

“He can’t use the stairs on his own,” Sherlock murmured, but with last bits of hope got to his feet all the same.

 

John found him sitting on the last step in the doorway, hands steepled under his chin.

“I’ll take it he’s not here either,” he said and defeatedly dropped himself on the step beside Sherlock. He lowered his face into his hands, fighting the screams that wanted to leave his throat. His fight-or-flight response has taken him over and it took everything he had in him not to punch the nearest person just for the sake of it. “Oh my God… Oh Lord … Jesus, Sherlock, he couldn’t have just disappeared!”

“Someone kidnaped him.”

“No, don’t, don’t say that! ... Christ!” John cried. “Only a few knew about him and I’m pretty sure no one from the Yard took him. Maybe Mycroft came by.”

“The baby phone was on, I checked when I left it with William and rechecked it when I searched the bedroom. William always wakes up at the slightest of noises or to someone walking around and he _always_ makes you know you have to do something about it. If he woke up, he wouldn’t just quietly descend the bed and walk out, not to mention he _cannot_ get down the bed on his own. If he fell down and started crying, I would hear it. Hence, someone walked into the room, switched the baby phone off, removed William from the room and switched the phone back on. Also, the bed covers were drawn back much further and in a way that a kicking baby wouldn’t manage to do by himself. I heard you unlock the door when you returned but didn’t hear anyone else enter, so the kidnapper entered through the window in your bedroom, which was left ajar as always, there are no footprints anywhere in the flat or on the window sill. This was carefully planned! Someone took him from right under my nose!” Sherlock was talking so quick John lost him a few times, but the detective was usually right even if he didn’t catch the why. The last sentence was repeated with a high pitched hiss through his greeted teeth that sent goose bumps down John’s spine and propelled him up to his feet.

“What’s all this noise?” Mrs Hudson came checking from her flat. “Sherlock, are you going to finish your tea? Oh, John, fancy a cup of herbal tea? It will help you sleep.”

“Not now, Mrs Hudson, William is …” John started, but was instantly silenced by a sharp pain on his inner thigh inflicted by Sherlock’s nails digging into the sensitive skin.

“Later, Mrs Hudson, I was just informed about an urgent case, we’ll be leaving immediately,” Sherlock provided, jumped to his feet and started pushing John up the stairs in front of him.

“William, too?” their landlady asked, a bit concerned.

“Yes, of course,” Sherlock hurried, affirming his words with a painful forgery of a smile and shut the door behind them.

“No one must know!” Sherlock hissed as soon as they were alone and shook John by his shoulders.

“But Sherlock, this is not a joke, we don’t have a clue who took him … the lawyers? The Hughes? Are they trying to make you look irresponsible?” John shouted under his breath and started nervously pacing up and down the living room.

“No, they know who they’re up against, it wouldn’t work. I would find them sooner or later, they would just dig their own graves with this,” Sherlock said before he stormed to his room and started ripping his clothes off. John took his gun from the uppermost shelf and loaded it before sticking it behind his belt on his back. He seized William’s bag, still packed from their daytrip, and shuffled inside two additional nappies, some clean clothes and some already prepared baby food, the portable first aid kit, two bottles of almost boiling water and clean towels.

“I don’t understand why, though,” Sherlock continued while buttoning up his shirt, “why would anyone take him, there’s nothing to gain! I don’t have any important cases at the moment, I lost my trust found when I refused Emma, I don’t know any important government secrets and Mycroft has his own set of children to kidnap. Not to mention, I have never been known to … be fond of children, hardly an effective way to blackmail a sociopath!” Sherlock stormed out of his room so freaked out for his usual bored demeanour John almost pointed a gun at him. Freaked out, yes, but still dressed impeccably.

Sherlock slipped into his coat with the usual hurry of an exciting case and grabbed his shoes.

“So, where do we start?” John asked, putting on his jacket and nervously rechecking the gun behind his waist for the third time.

His long fingers froze in the middle of tying his second shoe and in that unprecedent moment, Sherlock looked utterly lost.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: child kidnapping

Only the way too fast pounding of his hearth assured him that the time didn’t actually stop. Sherlock froze, with eyes unfocused on the ground and his lower lip started shaking when he tried to say something that didn’t make it out of his mouth. John closed his eyes and tried to take a breath as deep as the clenched muscles of his chest allowed it.  _Calm down, Watson. He had to calm down and think, panicking never solved anything._

“Mycroft,” Sherlock whispered and pushed himself back onto his feet.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” cried John, but he was desperate enough to believe even something like that.

“Dear Lord, no! The tracking device! I just hope they didn’t remove it. It looked suspicious enough,” Sherlock growled and started searching his clothes for the phone.

“Why would it be suspicious?”

“Because I put it there,” he murmured when he finally managed to get his phone out of the inner pocket of his suit jacket.

“People don’t know that.”

“Maybe, but they certainly know I allowed it to stay there.”

“Yes, why would you be sentimental about the dead mother of your child,” John huffed and threw his arms in the air, but immediately forced himself to calm down again. Not the issue to focus on at the moment.

Sherlock decided that an amused look should be enough to shut John up as he pressed the phone to his ear. It took quite a few rings before his brother picked up.

 _“Sherlock, for the love of God, have you lost your mind?”_ his brother growled with a low, hoarse voice. He was clearly already asleep.

“Mycroft, check the location of William’s tracker. Immediately, if convenient!” Sherlock said, trying to keep his voice calm, but not efficiently enough to fool anyone.

 _“Sherlock, what is going on?”_ Mycroft, on the other hand, didn’t try to hide his concern at all.

“Please!” Sherlock finally cried and provoked a long silence on the other side of the phone.

_“I’m on it, now, for God’s sake! What is going on? What did you do?”_

“William got kidnapped! They left no clues I could follow, I NEED the location of the tracking device NOW!”

There was that telling silence again and Sherlock finally gave in to his agitation and started pacing the living room.

_“How?”_

“I don’t know, I was at Mrs Hudson’s, William was asleep … Not important right now! The location, Mycroft!”

 _“They are still on the move, leaving London towards south, on A23 road right now. If we’re lucky, they are headed for the suburbs, a hideout house there. If we’re not … I’ll assemble a team as soon as possible, we have time till nine o’clock to resolve this, but I’m afraid it’ll take some time. The stand by team is already on the field outside London. Give me one hour, I’ll start immediately. Don’t do anything stupid!”_ Mycroft said and hung up, clearly agitated. Sherlock incredulously stared to his phone before his face skewed in disgust.

“Unacceptable! I cannot wait one hour; they could leave the country in that time!”

He paced the length of the room one more time with his hands steepled under his chin and then started typing on his phone again.

“What are you going to do?” asked John, concerned for more reasons after each passing moment. He was well aware that this was a textbook situation for panicking, but for both Homes brothers to lose their calm and calculated demeanor … it somehow made it even worse.

“I’ll have my homeless network steal a car so we can leave ahead,” said Sherlock and brought his phone back to his ear.

“No, you’re not!” hurried John and grabbed the phone from his hands. “It could take a lot of time finding a suitable car in London, not to mention we would be in big trouble and definitely late if we got stopped on our way with stolen property in our possession!”

“Not because it’s wrong to steal?” Sherlock asked incredulously.

“A life is at stake!” he hissed and gave Sherlock his pointed look. There, right there he snapped into his solder mode and God help the kidnapper now.

“Fine,” said Sherlock with a ghost of a smile on his face when he sneaked the phone from John’s hands and quickly dialled another number.

 _“Sherlock, you better be dying or I’ll kill you!”_ Lestrade growled in the phone when he finally picked up.

“George, I need to borrow your car,” Sherlock said without as much as a _sorry for calling in the middle of the night_.

_“It’s Greg! And why for the love of God almighty you need my car at one o’clock in the morning!? Christ Sherlock, I was asleep!”_

“No time, we’ll be at your place in half an hour, have the car and keys ready!”

 _“Do you even have a driving licence?”_ Lestrade asked, but got no answer as Sherlock hang up and stormed down the stairs, dragging John with him.

It is probably one of those laws of physics, like gravity, that proportionally with the urgency you find yourself in, more things will go wrong. For starters, it took them quite some time to find a taxi, which than got stuck somewhere in the middle of the run due to a minor traffic accident they had to go around while Sherlock kept barking directions to the perfectly capable cabbie. When they finally arrived at Greg’s place, the DI was already waiting for them, leaning on his car parked on the kerb in front of his apartment building in not much more than his coat thrown over his pyjamas.

“Care to explain?” he said as he gave Sherlock the car keys without a blink of hesitation.

“An urgent case for Mycroft,” John supplied, as Sherlock opened the passenger door and manhandled him inside the car before he could even finish what he wanted to say.

“What did you get yourselves into this time? Who’s looking after William?” Greg continued with questions as Sherlock run past him to the driver’s side and elegantly slid into DI’s family station wagon, including two child safety seats. Perfect!

“Everything is under control, but we’re in a bit of a hurry,” murmured Sherlock as he fastened his seat belt, turned on the engine and stepped on the gas at the same time.

“Yes, fine, but you don’t really seem just _a bit_ in a hurry,” murmured Lestrade as he watched his car turn at the end of the street at an unhealthy speed.

 

A massage alert interrupted the thick silence half an hour into their ride. The sudden noise scared him out of his life and John cursed under his breath before reaching for Sherlock’s phone without being told. After a few additional colourful cursed he managed to get it out of the detective’s inner jacket pocket and read it out aloud.

“The signal stopped in an abandoned industrial zone outside the suburbs, I attached the coordinates. I couldn’t locate the exact hall, so look for a black Mercedes. Text me the exact location for my team and I should probably remind you NOT to do anything stupid. Do not enter the building or try to retrieve William! My team will be on the way shortly. MH … A black Mercedes, what the hell?! There even are high class criminals, for Christ’s sake!”

“Hmm,” murmured Sherlock and accelerated. “A small team than, a car that will not attract attention, planned ahead, acquainted with my methods and our daily routine. They are waiting for someone to pick him up or they have a reason that involves me, otherwise they would have just left the country or go somewhere more appropriate for a child. Giving the amount of preparation they put into this and the stupid idea to kidnap MY child, I will go with the later.”

“What could they possibly want so badly?” John murmured and loaded the coordinates into the phone’s GPS. The familiar female voice announced their next turn in a few miles and John sighed desperately.

“It says here we have one hour and a half till we reach the destination.”

“One hour and a half too long,” hissed Sherlock and pressed the gas pedal all the way down **.**

 

They reached the industrial zone in one hour without any interruptions and hid the car behind a small hall near the entrance. The complex was small for an industrial park, but still too big if one didn’t know where to look. John sighed and internally cursed the inaccuracy of most up to date secret service technology. 

“Let’s start with the car,” announced Sherlock and slipped into the nearest shadow. They moved like the deadliest predators, silent, quick, with a torch in one hand and gun in the other, but it still took them fifteen minutes to locate the black car, parked in the middle of a big empty hall, safely hidden from satellites and Mycroft. Sherlock texted his brother the exact location and the car plates, before the two slipped into the office part of the building. It was almost three o’clock already and they didn’t want to waste a second. 

The offices were empty, no sound or light coming from the cracks under the old doors. The search went on and on and at some point Sherlock started frustratingly opening the doors without waiting for John to secure the rooms first. By that point the doctor was past the point of carrying, he would just shoot anyone bigger than William.

“Do you think they already left?” John whispered, fighting the urge to switch on the lights. With all the noise Sherlock was making, it would hardly matter. They were obviously alone on the floor.

“No, there were no signs of another car in the dirt in the hall, just two sets of shoe prints heading for the offices. They are still here, or they found another exit,” Sherlock blathered and run for the stairway at the end of the corridor, where he saw the evacuation plan including a map of the building. They already checked the two uppermost floors of the three story building. There was another, smaller hall on the other side, but Sherlock was pointing to something else.

“There’s another exit. Let’s first check if they are still here. If not, we’ll start looking for William’s discarded clothes and the tracking device.”

The two sneaked down the stairs quieter than mice and headed for the exit, when Sherlock abruptly stopped and held up his hand.

“Can you hear that?”

“Classical music?” whispered John, more confused with each moment. They headed back to the entrance to the hall and pressed their ears to the door. Apart from the Beethoven’s third symphony, there was no sign of someone else present, so Sherlock slowly pushed the door open as John slipped in, gun first.

The hall was dark, lit only by the one working floodlight somewhere in the middle of the empty space, illuminating a familiar figure dancing to the melody. John took a deep breath to calm himself down and grabbed the gun tighter as he run after Sherlock towards the centre of the hall. This was a mess he really, really didn’t want William involved in. _Oh God … could it get any worse? No, scratch that, never dare the destiny!_

“Sherlock! And Johnny Boy, what a surprise! You caught me in such embarrassing position!” squeaked the dark haired man as he turned around to find the unexpected audience and John could feel the hair standing up along his spine. He aimed directly into his head and quickly scanned the surroundings, but no dancing red dots appeared, although the madman didn’t seem worried.

“What, no snipers today?” he hissed, just to boost his self-confidence a bit.

“No, the party was planned for later, you’re a bit early, you see,” Moriarty said while wiggling his hips as in embarrassment, but the curiosity got the best of him and he whispered: “Who gave away the secret?”

“You underestimated me again,” Sherlock said, firmly grabbing his hands behind his back, “I’m flattered.”

“You really shouldn’t be, gloating can make you slip and right now you don’t strike me as someone who can afford that, but then again, it wouldn’t be fun otherwise, would it?”

“I’ll make sure not to repeat your mistakes,” Sherlock smirked, but a second later his face went dead serious. “Where is he?”

“Where is he? What did you do to him? Is he okay?” Moriarty started crying and shaking with desperation, until he abruptly stopped, head tilted to the side. “You’re getting boring, Sherlock, fatherhood doesn’t suit you. I really should do something about that, before your brain rots any further … Wouldn’t want to become ordinary, would we?”

An awkward silence filled the hall when Moriarty’s last word echoed out and John spared a quick glance in Sherlock’s direction. The detective was just standing there, staring at his nemesis with a terrified expression, leaving John more confused than scared.

“What do you want?” John growled just to say something and Sherlock would have rolled his eyes in tandem with Moriarty if he wasn’t too busy keeping himself composed.

“You know, same as always, passing time, avoiding boredom …”

“You kidnapped a child because nothing else popped on your fucked up mind?” shouted John and barely refrained himself from pulling the trigger. It shouldn’t have surprised him, it really shouldn’t, but he couldn’t keep his disgust to himself any longer. Sherlock at least limited himself to destroying things, not lives, for God’s sake!

“No, of course not, for what kind of monster do you take me? I staged five murders because I was bored and wanted Sherlock to play with me, but the two of you just didn’t show up! And I even put sooo much thought in staging them so perfectly! Weren’t they ingenious, Sherlock?”

“You killed five people to lure Sherlock out?!” John rephrased the question with even more acid in his voice, while Sherlock just stood there, his death glare pointed towards Moriarty, and breathed a bit deeper than usually.

“No, the first two had to die, but I have to admit I was soooo disappointed when Sherlock didn’t show up, I just had to stage another one to cheer myself up. I had fun, of course I did, but the little angel still didn’t come. Not even a serial killer got your attention! I got worried; I had to check on you… Imagine my surprise when I saw you with a child! Having fun, feeding ducks, swimming in the pond … It was wrong!” He shouted the last three words with all rage he could manage and they echoed through the empty hall, startling Sherlock out of his daze. He retained his composed posture, but made an unconscious step closer to John. Something was wrong, but Jim didn’t seem to notice as he continued like nothing had happened, turning back to Sherlock with a scolding expression.

“You were distracted, I had to raise the stakes. Did you like my congressman touch? No? I should have known you wouldn’t recognize him, but at least you showed up… with that little annoying creature again! What is so special about him, Sherlock? Giving up thrilling cases for a crying and pooping inconvenience! It felt wrong not to introduce myself!”

“You kidnapped him in the park?” Sherlock finally found his voice, not trying to hide his agitation any longer. He clenched his hands tighter behind his back, restraining himself from charging forward. It wouldn’t do any good, they first needed to find out where William was.

“No, he did all that by himself. He’s good! I like him! The great Sherlock Holmes brought to his knees by a baby. I already see the shining headlines. How come you have not written about it on your blog, Johnny boy? To pass on a scoop like that, I’m disappointed. But then again, you both seemed so scared I could not refrain from wondering … and then it hit me! Another heart to burn!” He spit out the last sentence with enough venom to poison half of London and Sherlock’s face went a bit paler. John tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry like a desert.

“It was like my birthday, Christmas and Halloween all in one day, can you imagine? The prospect of aaaaaall the fun I was going to have. The wait was so thrilling! I sent Seb out to kidnap him, you know, introducing some diversity in my repertoire… I like it, maybe I should extend my services to …”

“Where is he?” Sherlock barked, interrupting Moriarty’s monologue, and leaned forward, his hands clenched into fists. He was shaking and John wasn’t sure if from anger or fear. Neither was good against their host.

“Sentiment, Sherlock? Really? Emotional doesn’t suit you. Watching you like this makes me cry … no, wait, I’m not you!” Jim squeaked back and leaned forward to mimic Sherlock’s posture, but there were no compromising emotions behind his gestures, just pure and simple madness.

“Where is he?!” Sherlock repeated the question and grabbed the gun from John’s hands to aim at Jim’s head. His hand was shaking enough he wouldn’t hit an elephant from the distance of one meter, but at least he managed to keep his voice steady. “You’re unarmed and alone, quite a disadvantage, don’t you think?”

“Is it?” Moriarty whined in his best long suffering tone, before a smile lurked back on his face. “But you still don’t know where William is … This is like a sign, the universe finally brought us together to play!”

“You’re not going to stop, are you?”

“Of course not, I respect the universe!”

“You’re mad!”

“A sentiment many people share.”

“What do you want?!” Sherlock finally screamed and started panting. John never saw him panic before and it was a sight he never wanted to see again. Sherlock was an emotional mess, scared to death, but not for himself. No, he looked ready to foolishly jump Moriarty any moment now, a stupid move for the clever detective, but exactly what a desperate parent would do for his child without thinking. But for John, the scariest think was the realization that he was ready to back Sherlock up with this. Without thinking.

“How many times do I have to repeat myself? Are you really dense beyond my most pessimistic expectations?” Jim murmured, lowering himself on a wooden create and crossing his legs. He stared back at the two of them, when it became obvious he was expected to articulate it yet again. He rolled his eyes with a loud sigh and started inspecting his nails.

“I want you to play with me, Sherlock. I want you to play that little game we started so long ago and never finished…”

“You want to kill me,” Sherlock declared bluntly.

“Of course I want to kill you, there’s really no need to state the obvious… But not just yet, that would be boring. I have a plan for us, a dance. You love to dance, don’t you? I’ll make you dance,” he said with an evil sub-tone to his voice, dramatically pushed himself away from the create and started swaying towards Sherlock. “It’ll be perfect. A sad story of a lonely little angel who craved for the attention and prise so, sooooo much that he sold his soul to the devil …”

He placed himself directly at the gunpoint when the door to the hall opened with a loud crack and an unknown voice preceded the silhouette that entered.

“I’m not paid enough for this shit! This little holly terror will kill me!”

Sebastian lowered something to the ground and started limping away, when the situation reached his awareness and stopped him in place. He slowly turned around, taking in the three men staring back at him and a gun pointing to his boss.

“Jim?” he carefully asked, not sure what was going on, and made a few steps forward into the dim light. He had a swollen eye, a dirty shirt and his leg looked like something really hot was spilled over it, making him limp. He reached for his holster, but it was empty. William, still sitting on the cold floor, finally bursted into a desperate cry.

The consulting criminal and his PA stared at each other for a long moment, before Moriarty turned back towards Sherlock with a pained expression:

“I’m in need of a new sniper. Anyone you would recommend?”

Whatever punch line Sherlock had in store for him got cut off by a loud thunder outside, immediately followed by a voice on a loudspeaker informing them that they were surrounded, if the dancing red dots on their foreheads weren’t telling enough.

“William!” cried Sherlock and before John could stop him, he ran right into the snipers’ trajectory and towards the sobbing boy on the floor like a headless chicken. Thank God Mycroft’s men knew better than to shoot, but that also gave Moriarty and Moran a perfect opportunity to run for it. The commotion that arouse in the next instant was indescribable; smoke bombs, gun shots, barked orders, helicopters, sirens … but in that moment all John heard and saw was a crying baby and his father protectively wrapped around him on the floor, blabbing out some incoherent business about being safe and going home. John kneeled beside them and pointed the gun into the thick smoke, waiting for any unwanted passer-byes while sending prayers to the man upstairs. His eyes stung from the smoke, begging him to close them, but he wouldn’t let go. It felt like he went through his training and Afghanistan just to endure this exact situation. Soon they were surrounded by a protective ring of agents with their backs towards them but John knew better than to relax. Moriarty might as well be one of them.

Sherlock’s whole body was shaking and from the way his every third whispered word broke, John was sure he was crying or frantically trying not to. William calmed down once Sherlock got hold of him, but the detective just kept on breathing shallowly and murmuring the same words over and over again; _You’re fine. You’re fine, oh God you’re fine …_

John placed a hand on his back, gently rubbing a circle over the soft wool, and waited. The visibility slowly got better, revealing dozens of agents armed to their teeth running around them, shielding them, but it took what felt like ages before the chaos calmed down enough for the Special Forces to turn their full attention towards them.

“You’re safe now, sir,” said the nearest masked agent, but John just kept pointing his gun into his neck until the agent removed his helmet and gas mask, revealing an unfamiliar face. John let out a sigh of relief and lowered his gun, but still kept his senses alert. Sherlock calmed, but when John stood up and the soothing hand left the small of his back, the detective tensed again.

“Please, follow us, sir,” said another agent, removing his gas mask without being prompted, and gestured towards the entrance to the hall, now widely open as agents kept running in and out like perfectly coordinated ants.

“Sir, please, stand up ...” said the first agent, but as he gripped Sherlock’s elbow to help him get to his feet, a desperate roar echoed through the hall. John turned in an instant just to see the confused agent make a step away from the detective.

“Don’t touch him!” growled Sherlock and tightened the protective cocoon around his son, who started crying again.

“Sherlock, it’s fine, William is safe, no one will hurt him, no one will take him away from you. But we have to get out, this smoke is not exactly healthy,” said John in a calming voice as he jogged back to Sherlock’s side and dropped on his knees in front of him. _How did he not see that Sherlock still needed him?! How, for God’s sake, could have he left him alone like that?_ “Come on, we have to go out, let’s go out together. Please, Sherlock, for William, he shouldn’t be breathing this air.”

Sherlock slowly looked up at John with swollen eyes, scrutinizing his friend for a long moment before he almost imperceptibly nodded and let John pull him back on his feet. The doctor never left his side again, holding his elbow as they rushed out of the hall and into an armoured van, parked in front of the industrial hall. 

“Are you all right?” John immediately asked when he pushed Sherlock down on the bench in the van and cupped his head in his palms to check the irritated skin on his face. His eyes were red and swollen, but the tears kept them clean, so there was nothing to worry about.

“William,” Sherlock whispered with a harsh voice and slowly released the grip on his coat, revealing the boy underneath. John dropped to his knees and turned William’s face towards him. He didn’t dare even think about taking him from Sherlock.

“He seems fine. His face is red, but it’s probably from crying, because he doesn’t look in any kind of pain, he’s breathing and blinking normally,” John said and a reassuring smile lurked on his face when he looked up at Sherlock. The boy was almost back to his old self; a bit cautious, but already curiously looking around while safely clenching to Sherlock’s jacket underneath his coat.

“I kept a handkerchief over his mouth and nose,” Sherlock said, releasing the small white tissue he was clenching this whole time.

“Good thinking.”

“Of course,” Sherlock shrugged and a ghost of a smile flashed over his face. John chuckled at that and covered his face with both hands. Because his eyes, on the other hand, weren’t so much all right.

“I should wash my face,” he murmured and Sherlock silently pointed to the corner of the van, where he spotted William’s baby bag. The initially almost boiling water was now of that perfect temperature to wash their hands, faces, mouths and clean William’s face with a dump cloth. They changed his nappy and by the time Sherlock forced the last spoon of the puree down William’s throat, the detective was back to his good old annoying self. He paced the length of the van for a few minutes and then reached for his phone to check the time. There were like hundreds of messages from Mycroft. The first few were variations on the theme of _Don’t you dare go inside_ , which later switched to _Get out of there immediately_. Sherlock just frowned and put the phone away without bothering to read not even one more than necessary.

“It’s five o’clock, why for Goodness sake are we still wasting time here?!” Sherlock hissed through his greeted teeth and pushed the now babbling and yawning William in John’s arms. He slowly opened the door of the van and was immediately stopped by the agent outside.

“Please, do not leave the vehicle, sir.”

“Why are we still here? We have to go back to London as soon as possible,” Sherlock hissed and gave the agent one of his threatening looks, but the guy seemed to be trained exactly for this occasion.

“We have to secure the area first, sir.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Did James Moriarty threaten you?” he asked with a tone that suggested he already knew the answer anyway.

“Of course he threatened me! That’s his favourite pass time! … Oh…Oh, lovely,” Sherlock smirked upon realisation.

“Is something wrong, sir?”

“And here I though the implication of the phrase ‘ _You’re surrounded’_ actually meant that that certain someone was surrounded,” sneered the detective and shut the door before the guard could give him that _it’s-all-your-fucking-fault_ look.

“What is going on?” asked John, when Sherlock dropped himself on the steel bench, clearly forgetting it was not as soft as his favourite sofa, at least judging from the loud thud his head made at the impact with the cold surface. The detective winced, but managed to play it out as nothing dramatic had happened.

“Mycroft’s trained chimps let them escape. They once again proved that they’re good for a whole lot of nothing,” Sherlock grimaced and finally reached behind to rub over his newly acquired bump. The back of his head really wasn’t having its lucky weak.

“They saved our lives,” John pointed out and checked the time for himself. Five past five. Five minutes that stretched more than an eternity and on top of it, they only had four hours left. But at least William was safely in their hands.

“We had William and a gun, their intervention was not necessary,” Sherlock growled and turned his back towards John, sulking. John sighed, but refrained from saying anything. It didn’t really matter anymore, they were safe. Thank God, they were safe.

They were left waiting for another fifteen minutes, just long enough for William to fall asleep. This meant that only one Holmes was making problems out of nothing when they were manhandled into a black SUV and sent home, or rather the MI6 headquarters, as later emerged. The air in the car was dense, with Sherlock still giving them the silent treatment and John just couldn’t stand it anymore. _They were on their way, why couldn’t he just relax?_ For the love of his life he never thought he would miss Sherlock’s antics. He needed something, a reassurance that everything was all right from somewhere outside his head.

“That was a funny little exercise let’s never repeat again,” John chuckled quietly, not to wake up William, and looked at Sherlock sitting next to him. The detective released a hum John decided to interpret as a _yes_ and rearranged the sleeping boy more comfortably in his lap, but no less protectively. Looking back, it really was a pathetic attempt at a conversation.

“Sherlock, talk to me.”

“It’s fine, it’s all fine, why wouldn’t it be fine?” huffed Sherlock and looked away through the darkened car window to the still sleeping suburbs.

“Sherlock …”

“Don’t be tedious, John, I’m just a bit tired. You should try to rest, there are only three hours left,” Sherlock scolded him, not turning away from the window. John sighed and let his head fall back to the head rest. Maybe Sherlock was right after all. He could feel the adrenalin leaving his bloodstream, leaving his limbs and mind limp. They all could use some rest.

Gradually, the suburbs shaded into the well-known streets as the dawn gently announced the beginning of another sunny day. John looked out of the window and smiled at himself. They could go to the park after lunch, to celebrate, maybe somewhere with a sandpit, William would sure like it. And Sherlock too, there are quiet some experiments he could do with the sand without making it explode or drain in blood. And let’s not forget that awesome smelling coffee they sell on the stall in the middle of Regents Park. He would kill for one in that moment. They could also make a quick visit to the Bart’s. He was already looking forward to the shocked expression on Molly’s face.

The car turned into the underground garage and was immediately surrounded by doctors and security guards. As soon as they confirmed no one was dying, they were rushed into a private elevator and straight to the top floor, where Mycroft waited for them in the lobby, impatiently tapping his umbrella’s spike on the wooden floor.

“Have you lost your mind completely?!” he growled the moment the three exited the elevator and made a few impulsive steps forward.

“It’s fine,” Sherlock dismissed him and tried to cement his point with a glare.

“If by ‘fine’ you mean almost had yourself, John AND your son killed, then yes. I’ll see to redefine the meaning of the word in the English dictionary as soon as we are done here,” Mycroft hissed, not trying to edit the bitterness out of his voice at all.

“I think we efficiently solved the issue and I don’t see any need for you to release your domestic frustrations upon us,” Sherlock growled back and John grabbed his elbow to try and prevent any further damage.

“Sherlock, you may want to …”

“And you, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft turned his death and destruction announcing glare towards John, “I always assumed the army though you better than to run straight into enemy’s hands.”

John subconsciously tightening his grip on Sherlock’s elbow and stuttered in shock and surprise.

“They … I …I didn’t think it …”

“Yes, that much is obvious,” Mycroft cut him off. He turned on his heels to retreat to his office, but stopped in the middle of the hallway.

“Tell me, how can I trust you with William’s life if you’ll keep having your _all-consuming bursts of idiocy_? Would it be after all really wiser to give William to the Hughes?”

“It’s not Sherlock’s fault William got kidnapped!” John squeaked, trying to defend his friend, but mostly to redirect the line of thought Mycroft headed to. He only made things worse.

“No, but it was his brilliant plan to march in Moriarty’s hideout without an actual plan or backup! It could have been a trap. All three of you could have been killed. If his goal was to get Sherlock, William would be perfectly safe up to the moment you stepped into his base! You should have waited for my team!”  The words escaped Mycroft’s mouth with much higher volume than intended and he immediately tried to recollect himself. “In the end it was a good think, since he didn’t expect such _stupid_ move from you, but this hardly excuses your actions.”

“Spare me the drama, we had everything under control!” barked Sherlock. All the shouting finally woke William up, who immediately started rubbing his eyes and letting out annoyed little noises.

“Shut up, Sherlock!” Mycroft roared over the confusion with so much ice in his voice to send goose bumps all over John’s body. “Just shut up for once in your life, for God’s sake!”

The thick silence that filled the lobby spoke volumes. After a minute, Mycroft took a deep breath and squeezed the words out with reluctance.

“There were activated pressure-triggered bombs in the ground around the industrial area … Just in case you were wondering why you had to wait for one hour.”

He barely repressed a sigh and proceeded to his office without another glance at his disgraced brother. John stood frozen, panting, half hidden behind Sherlock. The previously repressed awareness of the terrifying danger they faced began to struggle to the surface bit by bit, triggering shivers in his exhausted body.

“Oh, dear God,” he cried and leaned on Sherlock to keep himself standing. “He’s right, you know. Jesus Christ he’s right.”

“John, don’t …”

“There definitely were better ways to do it,” he murmured and pulled himself together enough to stand on his own. “We were always like that, first shoot, then ask questions, and only then think what we’re actually doing. Which is all fine, we’ll just have to rethink the order a bit.”

“Just let me do the thinking.”

“If that was meant to be consoling, you missed it by a mile,” John said with a grimaced sort of smile and took another deep breath. Sherlock gave him a smirk, but didn’t say anything more.

When they finally joined Mycroft in his office, the elder Holmes was sitting in his chair, half facing the window, with an empty scotch glass in his hand.

“Glad to see at least one of you came to his sense,” he said, looking at their reflection in the window. “Anthea will take you down to the Medical wing. I arranged a full body exam and complete blood work for William. Don’t even think about complaining. Moriarty had him in his hands long enough to inject him with something for all we know. And while you’re waiting, I would suggest you to do a quick medic check yourselves. Or at least take a shower, Anthea brought some of your clothes from Baker Street. It would be preferably if you don’t look so … artfully dishevelled for today’s happy family get-together. I’ll go on ahead. You take as much time as needed and make sure you do it right this time.”

He waved them away and walked to the Scotch bottle on the near table to pour himself another glass. When they turned around to leave, Anthea was already waiting at the office’s door and led the way back to the elevator and down to the third floor, where the nurses took things over. This time Sherlock let them take William with much less fuss than expected, but still shadowed the doctors through all examination rooms and laboratories, carelessly throwing around his not so accurate medical knowledge about not yet dead people. When the staff finally lost their patience and kicked him out, John took the opportunity and dragged Sherlock to the showers, where fresh clothes waited for them as promised. The MI6 doctors gave them a quick check and despite John’s assurance that they were not hurt, they got some top-secret eye-drops designed specifically for their agents, and all complaints were silenced when the uncomfortably green liquid started working its wonders.

It was half past eight when they were finally packed into a black Mercedes and set off towards Baker Street. Sherlock felt silent when the car door closed and all that confidence and arrogance slowly slipped from his face.

“Come on,” said John and grabbed his shoulder in a reassuring gesture. “It’s over. Just one more task and we can put all this behind us.”

“Of course,” whispered Sherlock and managed to put together a smile for John. He rearranged William in his arms and gently brushed the top of his head with his lips before turning towards the window and the oblivious scenery passing them by. John was tired, so he didn’t really mind the silence. The morning rush hour was at its finest and they were going to be late for the appointment in their own home, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care any more. The shivering thoughts of the night slowly left his mind and although he was sure he had enough material for a few years of nightmares, at least for now, he tried to replace them with the comforting image of all three of them, safe and sound, sitting in the back of a luxurious car. A smile lurked on his face as he comfortably leaned back and closed his eyes. They were going home. What else could ever matter?

 

“I can’t do this,” Sherlock murmured forty minutes into their ride. He sadly looked down at his son as he gently placed a hand over his head.

“What are you talking about?” John whispered, shaken out of his daydreaming, and seized at the shocking and yet so reassuring image in front of him.

“They were right; I’m not fit to be a father.”

“What? No! Don’t … Where the hell is this coming from?” John cried, franticly trying to keep his voice down while his brain started screaming in alarm and running all over the place. _No, God, no, please let this just be a silly misunderstanding._

“I’m an irresponsible idiot who solves crimes and puts himself and others in danger as an alternative to getting high …”

“No, Sherlock, listen …”

“Although I promised not to, in the last week I almost destroyed our flat, put William in immediate danger several times, made a few scenes in public …”

“Sherlock, I’m warning you, shut up!”

“… I let a psychopath abduct him from under my nose and threaten to kill him just so he could play his little game with me. He is in mortal danger just by being mine! This wasn’t fine even until it was just you, but you like it, and you can defend yourself, you’re strong and you can handle me … but he is so fragile … and I’m not capable of protecting anyone, including myself …”

As the last words quietly slid out of Sherlock’s mouth, he slowly turned back to the window and closed his eyes. William was still sleeping in his arms, but chafed and turned his head to the other side, with one small palm still tightly clutched around Sherlock’s scarf. John’s throat was dry and his eyes wide in horror and disbelief. _That was not right, Sherlock was wrong, he was so fucking wrong!_

“Sherlock, I think …”

“No.”

“Look, …”

“This was a mistake, I should have never agreed to this in the first place.” Sherlock was still looking away, his voice a calm whisper, but the reflection in the window was a grimace of hurt and pain, barely held back by a tensed, ought to be blank expression.

“Sherlock, you got scared, which is completely normal and I fully understand, but everything is fine now and you’re just overreacting, so don’t go making important decisions like this,” John said steadily after taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down. There was no way in hell this was going to end like this. Not after all that they’ve been through. He liked William. No, he _straight out loved him_ , he loved what the boy made out of Sherlock and he loved how he changed their lives. He made Sherlock … he made him human again. No, dropping everything was not an option.

“I’m better off alone, alone protects me. And it will protect William.” His voice was still calm, but he withdrew the hand from his son’s head and the tight, safe embrace loosened to the point that he was just keeping the boy from toppling from his lap.

“You’re wrong!” John finally snapped, involuntary rising his voice which trembled more with each word that left his lips. “You! Are so wrong I cannot even … Everybody makes mistakes, everybody has to learn things and even if you deleted the memories from your whole childhood, this still doesn’t mean you were already born with that fucking massive mind palace already furnished! You won’t admit it, but you like him and he unquestionably likes you a lot … No, don’t dare to interrupt me again! And don’t dare to bring that highly functioning sociopath crap of yours back up! You need him, because he makes you better, he makes you try harder! He gives you a purpose a lot more important than that of keeping your fucking mind busy! Sherlock, please! We can do this!”

John was out of breath when words finally failed him, although he barely scratched the surface of all the things he wanted to say. His whole body was shaking and the adrenalin rushing through his veins at thousand miles per hour didn’t help at all, when he tried his breathing technique again. He could feel his eyes watering up and squeezed the corners of his eye sockets to stop himself from sobbing. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears and somewhere in the background, William started crying. _Great_ , he even managed to wake up the boy with his outburst, if the chaos he was stuck in wasn’t enough.

“Christ!”

“I tried my best, John, and it wasn’t enough. I failed him and I would fail him in the future. He would never be able to trust me, just like no one else can,” Sherlock murmured as he started gently rocking William in his arms and shushing something until the boy calmed down and sleepily rubbed his eyes.

“ _I_ trust you,” John said firmly in searched for Sherlock’s face in the shadow of the car cabin, but the detective was still facing away from him. The moving scenery outside slowed down as the car pulled to the kerb in front of their apartment building. Sherlock quickly opened the door, but John grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“You must have loved someone one in your life. Please, remember, because you can have that again. You can love and you _will be_ loved, Sherlock!”

“John, for the love of God, save your senseless babbling for someone else!” Sherlock hissed. His voice was pure ice that sent a shiver of fear down John’s spine, but his eyes were sad, dead, like he shut himself out completely. John stared into his blank expression for a moment longer, panic overtaking his body again, but he released his hold. Sherlock immediately slipped out of the car and pushed the already unlocked door of 221 open, not waiting for John as he always did. There was another, sharper stab in his chest as he watched Sherlock slowly slip through his fingers. Suddenly, he was losing him too, and that was something he could never bear.

He launched himself out of the car without a second though and caught up to Sherlock in front of their main door. He grabbed the coat on Sherlock’s back with both shaky hands and cried.

“Sherlock, please, I know you’re confused and scared of what you’re feeling right now, but it’s all right, everything is all right. I’m here, I’ll help you. I’ll always be here! Listen to me, please! Stop this! Just stop it!”

Sherlock ignored him completely, took a deep breath and recomposed his face back to something smug and arrogant in a matter of seconds. He pushed open the door to their flat and walked inside like he owned the whole London.


	9. Chapter 9

His hearth clenched with that hateful feeling that something really bad is going to happen and he couldn’t do a shit about it. It was frightening, he wanted to run away. Or pause his life to have time to think everything through one more time, but he couldn’t do that either. It was far from the first time Sherlock was going to do something stupid in front of his eyes, and he always let him. Because this was Sherlock and he liked him, severed heads and unnecessary insults included. But this… This wasn’t one of his ‘ _the world is populated by idiots I’ll never comprehend’_ moments. He knew exactly what he was going to do and in that moment John wasn’t sure any more if he would find it in him to forgive Sherlock.

“Brother dear, I’m glad you could finally join us,” Mycroft greeted immediately and Sherlock stopped half way through the door.

“Yes, I apologize, an important matter emerged and we had to deal with it immediately,” Sherlock said coldly and lowered the boy to the ground. William immediately grabbed his father’s leg and hid behind it. John squeezed himself past Sherlock into the room and was taken aback by way more people 221B was designed to host. No wonder William was scared. There were eight faces John never saw before sitting on all chairs they could manage to find in the flat, all dressed in ridiculously expensive suits with almost matching ties, black suitcases and boring haircuts. At least someone had the good grace to prepare coffee while they waited.

“Hope you don’t mind, we took the liberty to confirm that your living premises are adequate for a child,” Mycroft continued with a ghost of a proud smile on his face. God knows what he found but John was suddenly extremely happy he had his gun with him.

“Hope you found what you were looking for,” Sherlock said with a smirk.

“I see he managed to survive,” an old man on the sofa laughed with a cold voice. John turned towards him with a death glare and lips pressed into a tight line. A contemptuous smile stretched over the old man’s face as he challenged Sherlock, somehow managing to look down at him even if he was two feet smaller and sitting down, his legs crossed on the coffee table. That could only be Richard Hughes, William’s grandfather. And there would be a long, cold winter in hell before John would let him have the kid.

Sherlock gave him his very best mockery of a smile as he turned towards the elderly woman sitting next to him with enough make up on to look forty again.

“Mrs Amelie Hughes,” Sherlock greeted, before he turned away again and started slowly pulling his gloves off, one finger at the time. The whole room was not too patiently staring at him, but he just carried on with his fiddling, ignoring them with every intent to make them nervous and succeeding gloriously.

“Send the lawyers out,” he announced suddenly, making a few of the suits shift uncomfortably in their chairs.

“Why?” frowned Hughes and crossed his arms in front of him.

“I dislike being outnumbered, it makes too much stupid in the room,” Sherlock said, annoyance loud and clear in each word.

“They are professionals and here for a reason!”

“They are just a professional waste of space and you won’t need them anyway,” he hissed, finally pulling off also the other glove. The whole room turned towards the detective and John’s vision went black for a moment. You didn’t need to be a highly functioning anything to see that Mycroft was staring at his brother with a look than could be translated only into something like _flee the scene now because in five minutes the whole MI6 will be after you_. William squeezed himself between Sherlock’s and John’s legs and started pulling on his father’s coat in a silent plea. But Sherlock stare remained cold and firm on Hughes’ face.

“Fine!” the old man snarled and with a wave of his hand, four men collected their stuff and left the room without making another sound. That left them with William’s grandparents and their remaining lawyer and another lawyer standing behind Sherlock’s chair, now occupied by Mycroft.

“Let’s make this quick then,” continued Hughes as his lawyer pulled a rather thick pail of papers out of his suitcase. “This is the contract, with which you irrevocably sign over all custody rights over William Holmes to me and my wife, including the inheritance and trust funds set for him and for the family you refused to be a part of. I’ll also need a signature on this document, in which you commit to never contact William, and it also prohibits you to come in touch with him in case he would try to search for you. And of course, you’re banned from all properties belonging to our family, including the flat Emma lived in and especially including our main mansion, where William will be staying from now on. Now, if you please.”

Hughes spread the three documents in five copies each on the coffee table and urged his wife and lawyer to vacate the sofa as he offered Sherlock his pen.

John grabbed his best friend’s wrist when the old man began to speak and tightened his grip with each sentence, probably cutting off Sherlock’s circulation by the end of Hughes’ monologue.

“Don’t do this, I’m begging you, Sherlock!” he hissed under his voice, pulling on the detective’s hand. Mycroft, who was strangling Sherlock with the force of his stare alone now turned towards John, a silent plea in his eyes. But Sherlock just kept staring at the coffee stable with dead eyes, his body  was limp, with just enough tonus to keep him standing. But to the outside world, he was still the proud, arrogant and indestructible sociopath.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered towards John and bent down to untangle William from his leg. John grabbed his hand again out of sheer desperation, but Sherlock shook him off with the same ease as he took off his coat, threw it over one of the now empty kitchen chairs and took the offered pen. He slowly lowered himself on the sofa, as Hughes took the chair behind their desk with a content sigh. Sherlock diagonally read through the first pile of papers and quickly signed the first document with far more force than necessary. John went pale, air slowly escaping his body in uncontrolled hisses as Sherlock removed the uppermost document and signed the second copy. _Don’t! Stop right there, you idiot!_

“Sherlock …” he exhaled, but had no force left to move. William was pulling on his trousers, urging John to pick him up, clearly sensing something was wrong.

Sherlock signed the third copy and without even blinking the last two followed smoothly. He collected the copies into a pile again and handed them to Hughes, who took them with a contented smile that John wanted to wipe of his face with a big sledgehammer.

Sherlock moved on to the second, much thicker pile and started reading. His eyes were scanning the document with an incredible speed and with every page he turned he got even paler than medically possible. His hand was shaking when he reached for the pen and John looked away. In his life, he saw soldiers getting blown up, fellow men getting torn apart by gunfire, friends die in his arms while he was trying to stiff their intestines back in their abdomens. It hurt but he watched. And yet, he couldn’t watch this.

“Sherlock, can I have a word with you? Now!” Mycroft abruptly cut into the silence and Sherlock froze, the pen point on the signature line. If looks could kill, Sherlock would be splattered against the wall behind the sofa, if by some lucky coincidence the wall refused to collapse on the impact. The two Holmes brothers kept staring at each other for two long minutes, a silent conversation going on in the middle of a living room full of oblivious observers.

“I …” Sherlock finally spoke, but his voice broke before he could get out another word. He looked at John, confusion and fear all over his face, and down to William, who was looking back at him with watery eyes.

“I …” he tried again but failed miserably. He slowly placed the pen on the table and stood up, straightening his jacket.

“Excuse me for a moment,” he said politely towards the Hughes couple and walked straight to his bedroom, silently closing the door. Silence felt on the living room as the elderly couple looked at each other in confusion and then fired a few poisonous looks towards Mycroft.

“Care to explain what this is all about?”

“I thought it was obvious, Sherlock needs a minute to think this through,” Mycroft said calmly as he walked to John’s side and picked William up.

“Go after him,” he whispered in his ear and returned to Sherlock’s armchair, urging his lawyer to take John’s.

“Don’t think he can change his mind so easy, he already signed!” Hughes barked back, his confidence and contempt nowhere to be seen. Instead, he was getting nervous and twitchy.

“He didn’t sign everything,” Mycroft said calmly and with a jerk of his head towards the kitchen finally torn John out of shock.

“Yes, yes, of course,” John whispered when his brain reconnected to his muscles, and dashed to the kitchen and down the corridor. He rested his head against the closed bedroom door and let the temporally relief wash over his body. He suddenly felt exhausted, but the war was far from over and he learned long ago that he shouldn’t be too happy over a won battle. This was just Sherlock calmly handling the situation by running away. Something that never happened before, so it could as well be a foreshadow of a disaster.

He knocked and slowly pushed the door open. He knew better than to wait for a reply that wasn’t coming. Sherlock was sitting on the bed in the dark room, head lowered in his hands. His long fingers were pulling on his dark curls and his shoulders were shaking with every barely controlled breath.

John walked to him, deliberating whether he should try and comfort his friend, but he got nervous again, and angry, frustratingly angry. _How dared he sign those documents?! No, how dared he even consider it?!_ Instead, he started pacing the length of the room and growling under his breath a steady flow of all swearwords he knew.

“Why the f- …” He stopped, discarding the ten page long profanity that wanted to escape his mouth, and tried again. “Sherlock, help me understand why are you doing this because I’m not letting them take William without a really, _really_ good reason, and not just a reason good enough for you. The two haven’t even looked at their grandson since we arrived for God’s sake! ... What went wrong? Was it Mycroft? Since when do you listen to him? … No, it started earlier… Is this because of what happened with Moriarty? Because considering all circumstances, you did a brilliant job down there,” John murmured and resumed his restless pacing.

“I was angry, it clouded my mind. It’s unacceptable!”

“No, you panicked.”

“I didn’t panic!” Sherlock spit the words out like they were poisonous.

“You love him.”

“I don’t do sentiment, John, sentiment is for the weak.”

“No, sentiment is for those strong enough that can afford to have a weakness and before you say anything else, yes, you are, you’re the strongest person I know. You panicked because you thought you’d lost him, _you_ , and not because of what Mycroft would do,” John said firmly and dropped himself on the bed besides Sherlock with no grace or control whatsoever.

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“You were trying to save crimes involving victims that were still alive several times, but you never, _never_ showed one bit of concern for their wellbeing, all you cared was the puzzle. When we went after William, there was no puzzle. You already deduced he was kidnaped and you already knew the location. You could have easily ordered Mycroft to retrieve him, but instead you rushed there yourself.” He took a deep breath, knowing full well Sherlock was too stubborn to ever consider his words, but he continued anyway. If nothing else, it was calming him down and he desperately needed to hear something reassuring, even if it was coming from his own mouth.

“I never did buy that sociopath diagnosis. All this time you were just scared and you protected yourself by building up the wall you saw fit best, a pretend so elaborate you started to believe it yourself. I’m sorry for whatever happened, but you’ve been stuck in that moment ever since. I bet it was easy to worship that brilliant mind of yours, hiding behind pure intellect, convincing yourself that that’s what you were designed to be, when the alternative meant you might get hurt again… Well, I have news for you … you just did, you just got hurt again, without even knowing why, because you never let yourself go for long enough to gasp what was going on.”

Silence felt between them again. John was praying for Sherlock to react, and at this point he didn’t care how any more, just that he did. He frantically hoped he didn’t just push him back into the abyss he just poked one finger out, that he didn’t just prove him he was right to have shut the emotions in the deepest basement of his mind palace. It hurt. He wanted to cry the tears Sherlock should have cried years ago so he could move on now, he wanted to scream at him, use all of his immense vocabulary that made Royal Marines blush, he was so desperate he wanted to shake him out of his mind once and for all.

There was the tremor in his hands again, but it was real this time. His mouth went dry and voice rough when he gathered the courage to speak the words he never imagined would come out of his mouth. Ella would be proud.

“We both have trust issues, and in certain occasions I’m grateful for them, but I guarantee you … no matter what William turns out to be, he will love your arrogant, impulsive, reckless, brilliant and devoted self more than you’ll ever be able to comprehend and I _guarantee_ you, no matter what he says or does, you’ll always run after him whenever he’ll need you.”

“How can I protect him if I… panic when he’s in danger?! I’m useless to him! He was saved by share luck!” Sherlock finally cried and coiled on himself even further.

“Next time, you’ll know what is going on, you’ll know what to do to help him, you won’t panic again,” John said and stood up, frantically trying to retain the tears in his eyes. He couldn’t do it anymore. If he stayed any longer he would break before Sherlock did. There was nothing else he could say to get through to him, he started sounding lame even in his own average mind. Looking back now, he was glad for all the trouble they had during the last week. It certainly wasn’t nice, but it proved an important point for both of them. One he was turning away from for all these years.

“You’ll have to let it go, Sherlock … We both have to… and just trust someone worth of it. You may never know if you did the right choice, there will be no empirical proof, no data to analyse. Just give yourself the benefit of a doubt for once in your life. Just … stop questioning everything, stop doubting … Just _stop it_!”

He shouted the last words and he didn’t care anymore if the guests could hear him. They could just bugger off if they didn’t like it.

He abruptly straightened his spine and headed to the door, but froze when his hand touched the door handle. He had to calm down or there might be dead people in immediate future and close proximity. And that would undoubtedly take William away. Which was not good. Not good at all.

“I can fake emotions. I cannot learn to feel them, no one can, you cannot cure a sociopath, studies have shown … ” Sherlock started murmuring around the hands still covering his face, but John interrupted him.

“But you’re capable of really strong emotions, Sherlock, and maybe that’s the problem. You don’t have to learn to feel; you have to learn how to handle them.” John took another deep breath. “Sometimes, the problem’s not that the water is to cold, but that your hands are too warm…”

“But it’s …It’s … it’s hard, John!”

“I never said it would be easy, Sherlock, and it won’t be in the future, but was it worth it so far?”

John didn’t wait for the answer he wasn’t getting anyway, he just turned the handle and opened the door a crack. A ray of light entered the dark bedroom and shone over Sherlock’s hunched figure. All that pride and brilliance reduced to a miserable mess of sharp bones and pale skin. The expensive suit was looking so out of place in that moment. William didn’t just get to him, he reached the core.

“Stand up … when you’re ready … come to the living room and tell those bastards you can be a far better father then they ever were and ever could be!”

He quickly stepped out of the room and closed the door, his heart pounding like mad again, when his last words finished echoing in his mind. He screwed up. How could he screw up something so important? What do people even say on occasions like this? How can someone make a stubborn mad bastard see that he’s wrong? He should have done more. Maybe he could try threatening him. It seemed to work when Moriarty did it.

He almost turned around and invaded Sherlock’s privacy again. But it was wrong. John was desperate. He urgently needed to do something, so he did the only thing he could think of that didn’t make things worse – he sent his fist into the wall. A loud thud echoed through the corridor and for a moment he thought he broke a few bones in his palm. But the pain was refreshing, welcome, clearing his mind with the familiar signal for danger. He still had a duty to fulfil; he had to protect what was theirs until he could, until Sherlock was back.

In the bathroom he washed the blood from his bruised knuckles and stared into the mirror until he recognized himself again. His heart rate dropped enough that he didn’t feel the heartbeats in his ears and limbs anymore and he recomposed his brain back to something capable to processing a few sentences that made marginal sense. When he returned to the living room, William immediately struggled from Mycroft’s lap and ran to John, crying his eyes out. He picked him up and started rocking until both of them calmed down. He would never stop being amazed at how reassuring could be feeling a heartbeat of someone you love.

“How is my brother doing?”

John looked up from William’s curls. Mycroft was tense. Yes, he looked relaxed and completely in control for someone not accustomed to Holmes’ brothers, but he was falling apart, right there in Sherlock’s chair, with every line of regret he saw on John’s face.

“I … I don’t know, he was not responsive.”

“You’re wasting my time. He signed, there’s nothing he can do,” Hughes interrupted, annoyed and nervous. His furious gaze flickered between John, Mycroft and his watch, until his head froze in the midway. Sherlock was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, composed and arrogant, hands behind his back as he took the two steps to John’s side.

“Finally!” Hughes hissed and quickly stepped towards Sherlock to guide him back to the sofa. And Sherlock went without protest. And he even took the damn offered pen again!

“Sherlock, no, please!” John cried and involuntary made a few steps towards his flatmate. Sherlock looked up at him and smiled. _What?! Has he gone completely mental?_

“Take a sit, John,” he said and moved a bit to the side to make space for the doctor and his child. John glanced at Mycroft’s blank face, but reluctantly obeyed. At least on the sofa he would be close enough to punch him when the time comes. Sherlock started gathering the unsigned documents and made two nice piles at the side of the table.

“Mycroft, if you please,” he said and the smile that was lurking in the corners of his brother’s mouth spread in its full glory.

“With my uttermost pleasure,” said Mycroft and gestured to his lawyer, who immediately pulled another thick pile of papers from his suitcase and handed them to Sherlock.

“What’s going on?” asked John, confused by the sudden burst of completely opposite feelings from the two sides of their living room. Hughes was breathing fire and his face turned completely red while his wife went pale and started fanning herself with the first book she grabbed.

“You can’t do this, he already signed my contract!”

“He signed the restraining order and I don’t think he’ll have trouble honouring it. On the other hand, by obeying the rules and demands you set for him, Mr Sherlock Holmes retained his right to keep his son. As promised, he will subject himself for toxicology screens every six months and of course you’ll be the first to know if William will be in danger due to Mr Holmes’ neglect or recklessness. Right now, however, with the right and obligation you gave me when we signed the original contract eight days ago, I’m pleased to comply with Mr Holmes’ decision…” said Mycroft’s lawyer and symbolically offered Sherlock another pen. “If I may, Sir.”

“Do something!” urged Hughes towards his lawyer, as Sherlock gratefully took the pen and signed the first document without sparing it another glance.

“I can’t, it’s all according to the original contract!” squeaked his lawyer and made a step back from his furious client. The internal giggle John was fighting for the last minute finally broke loose and he started laughing like a mental patient. _That bastard! That damn brilliant bastard!_ He suddenly wanted to kiss Sherlock and he would if that wouldn’t interrupt the signing, so he kissed William instead.

“Thank God, thank you, thank you! Jesus, that was scary, that was the scariest thing that ever happened to me, and I went to war, for Christ’s sake,” he giggled and squeezed the little boy in his embrace. Mycroft’s lawyer started sorting the documents and when the last signature was on the paper, he handed two copies of each document to Hughes’ lawyer. The old man disappeared into the hallway and was hysterically yelling at someone on the phone. His wife was still sitting in her chair, nervously murmuring something and touching her face, but when the documents were handed over, she left the room without a word, leaving their lawyer behind.

“Thank you,” the lawyer said reluctantly and shook hands with everyone in the room, “but I’m afraid you’ll be hearing from us soon.”

“You’ll always be welcome in my office with valid arguments,” Mycroft said smugly as he practically pushed the lawyer out of the flat and shut the door behind him.

“And now to the last matter,” said Mycroft’s lawyer and interrupted John’s preparations for the all-consuming burst of happy feelings. He was grinning so hard it must have hurt and there were tears threatening to leave his eyes if he would close them.

“There’s something else?” John suddenly choked, concerned again, and looked at Sherlock, whose face was blank as he watched another pile of papers being placed in front of them.

“Sherlock asked me to prepare a Parental Responsibility Agreement for you. Nothing to be alarmed about, it just means you’ll have a legal right and obligation to take care of William. You will participate in the decisions concerning his wellbeing, medical treatments and his education. Taking into account that the legal parent here is my brother, I would highly advise you to sign this agreement, not that I don’t have complete faith in him,” Mycroft explained and confirmed his words with a reassuring smile. He looked delirious, frantically trying to contain his relief and contentment behind the mask of composed indifference.

“What? When did you …?”

“I asked him yesterday, when I called him for the tracking device. I’m sorry, I realise I should have asked you first, I just thought that …” Sherlock said and looked away, humble and scared all over again.

“No, no, it’s fine! No, actually it’s great! My God. I’ll be honoured to help you raise him!” John squeaked, trying to get the words around his stupid grin, and started giggling again, as Sherlock gave him a shy smile, signed under his name on the agreement and pushed the papers in front of John.

He still didn’t completely comprehend, let alone gasp at all the consequences a decision like this will force on them, but something that felt like this couldn’t possibly be bad. They were keeping William. The two of them. Together. And not just that, he would even have the legal right to smack Sherlock in the face the next time he comes to a stupid idea of such proportions.

John looked down at Sherlock’s elegant signature and then up in his best friend’s beautiful, tearful eyes framed by an anxious expression, until the warm feeling from his chest reached his cheeks. He considered for a grand total of one second before he added his signature besides Sherlock’s.

 _Thank you, thank you …_ echoed in his mind as he looked up at him again: “Thank you!”

“No,” said Sherlock and lowered his head in shame, “thank you. And I’m … I’m sorry, John. I was …”

“I know, it’s fine now, you did right. Come here!” John said when the regret refused to leave Sherlock’s pale face, reached for the back of his friend’s neck and tugged him into an embrace. Sherlock tensed and for a moment John was afraid he crossed the line of acceptable social interactions, but then William started struggling to join the embrace, his father not only relaxed, but reached for his son and pulled him closer.

Only when the click of the front door snapped him out of his trans, John remembered they were not alone, and slowly released his hold, leaving William in Sherlock’s lap. The lawyer left, but Mycroft was still standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

“John, can I have a word?”

Trust Mycroft to abduct you in your own flat. John gave Sherlock another reassuring smile and a friendly squeeze on his shoulder when he pushed himself from the sofa and followed the elder Holmes into the kitchen, grabbing some empty mugs on the way.

“Yes, yes, I will take care of both of them and there will be my cold body buried somewhere before I’ll allow someone to hurt them again,” John chuckled as he put the mugs in the sink.

“I’m sure you will, but that’s not what I wanted to tell you.”

“If I hurt them you’ll break my legs before you make my body disappear never to be found again?

Mycroft forced a laugh.

“I learned my lesson about threatening you,” he said and looked down at the umbrella he was clenching with both hands just a little too forcefully. At that, John finally got serious. “My last request, before I leave you to your new family … Although my brother will die denying it, he’s quite capable of emotions, but being him, he deals with them with cold intellect and shows them in a way most people don’t perceive as affection. So I’m asking _you_ , John, _please_ , make sure William will know how a more affectionate, emotional love is supposed to fell like.”

For a few long moments, John just stood there and stared at Mycroft in disbelief, but then his mouth started twitching up again.

“I wouldn’t do it any other way!” he finally exclaimed as the grin returned to his face. He tapped Mycroft on the shoulder and almost run back to the living room, where Sherlock and William were immersed in one of those conversations where each person is talking about something else, but somehow everything still makes a hell a lot of sense.


	10. Epilogue

_18 th April_

**_The faithful murderer_ **

_I know it’s been awhile since my last post, but life has been significantly busier, as you can imagine. But first of all I want to thank you again for all toys and clothes you sent us (you really shouldn’t have) and especially for the warm and enthusiastic responses to the big news. I have to admit I was sceptic at the beginning, but right now, there aren’t many things I could complain about, and none of them involve William. Yes, the universe still revolves around the mad man, but deep down it seems I’m fine with that, too. You know what? Forget that, everything is perfect! Period!_

_It’s been a month now since William joined our little team of CSI Baker Street, as Lestrade likes to mock us, and I can finally say I’m getting a hold of this. For real this time. Although Sherlock’s still a bit of a challenge when he decides I could use some excitement in my life (I really don’t, at least not in the form of him being ridiculously stubborn and annoying, thank you very much), but I’m getting rather good at predicting, and therefore preventing, Williams tantrums. Thank God exactly the right portion of Sherlock’s genes got diluted._

_Of course we haven’t given up the cases, not only for the sake of my mental health, but also for the general public interest. Sherlock’s attempts at boredom got much more creative since he was forbidden to do experiments in the flat and from the time I caught him digging a hole in the middle of Regent’s park to set up a trap of some sort … Well, let’s just say that bringing William to crime scenes with us has less potentially catastrophic consequences. Of course Mycroft doesn’t like it, being dangerous and all that, but that’s just too bad._

_No, we are not one of those irresponsible parents! Just the safe cases, with victims confirmed dead and armed suspects nowhere near us. And no, William does not get to play with corpses like his father does with way too much enthusiasm, although his accuracy in mimicking Sherlock when fiddling with evidence and pictures is broaching a level of creepiness I’m not quite sure how to take. Describing it as cute would probably be stretching the definition a bit, but I’m getting used to expect eccentrics from two fonts now … thank God crime scenes are off limits for general public. So for now I’m only a bit worried where I’ll be able to cook when both start experimenting in the kitchen._

_But let me tell you about our last case. It seemed like one of those child-proof cases, but boy was I wrong.  A week ago, a middle-aged housewife Kathy came to us for help. As always, Sherlock deduced what it was about before she even reached the top of the stairs and deemed the case as boring, but only after he managed to insult her about the choice of her dress and hairdresser. Since I was sick of him boring me how bored he was I made him sit and listen. And of course he was right once again; she was sure her husband was cheating on her and she wanted proof before she confronted him, because she was most certainly not going to give up the flat she thought he bought somewhere in central London, presumably for his mistress._

_So when Sherlock ultimately run out of ways to express how dull the case was, we could finally go out to follow our suspect. It’s incredible how unsuspicious one can look when carrying a child, even if that said person is following someone through half of London in plain sight. And not just that, people instantly become trustful and answer even the rudest questions, as long as one is frantically trying to detach a baby-boy’s fist from his curls while barking them. Sherlock got himself a perfect weapon. The whole investigating thing wasn’t even a challenge._

_Anyway, we broke in the said flat, where we didn’t find a mistress, but a big office, perfectly equipped for his side business: creative book keeping, modern art smuggling (why would anyone do that?), small scale drug dealing (more sugar than drugs, according to Sherlock) and money forgery (which he wasn’t really good at, if I may add, the notes hardly looked like pounds). Not so much unfortunately (at least not now, when I’m looking back at it), our boy managed to spill his orange juice over the white leather sofa in the guy’s perfectly sterile never used living room. I was already planning out our funeral when Sherlock and I removed the sofa cushions to clean the spilled juice before the guy returned, just to find a whole another mess under it. It looked like a bleeding dead body was hidden there a day or so ago, or maybe not so dead, as Sherlock immediately corrected me based on the quantity of dried blood. He went on and deduced everything up to the underwear size of the victim and only then was I allowed to call Lestrade to report an already contaminated crime scene._

_Thank God for our favourite DI, otherwise the two of us would have to use quite some out-of-the-box imagination to explain why exactly did we break into a crime scene and how did we know it was there in the first place, because the ‘It was a coincidence’ excuse stopped working several break-ins ago. So after some ‘tedious’ explanations, we got a free ride in a police car to the Yard, where Sherlock bullied his way to the missing person reports and Lestrade’s computer, from which he searched for our victim based on his deductions from the blood pattern. Lestrade’s team went chasing after our killer as Sherlock instructed and we got an armed escort of two constables that had to promise not to speak or think, so we could go searching for the corpse._

 

The rattle in the kitchen slowly pulled John out of his two-finger-writing furry. He looked over his laptop screen just in time to see Sherlock stride into the living room with two mugs of tea in one hand, his violin and the bow in the other and a muffin in his mouth. Mumbling something unintelligible around the treat he put the two mugs on the table and the violin safely back in its case.

“William already fell asleep?” John asked a bit surprised at how soon Sherlock emerged from his bedroom. It wasn’t even one hour.

“Surprisingly, yes,” murmured the detective and sprawled himself on the sofa, finally biting in the muffin Mrs Hudson left for them at some point during the day. “Country air apparently tired him out more than I anticipated.”

“We should take more cases in the countryside. It was a nice day out,” John agreed. “And William seems to really like insects.”

“I could train him in forensic entomology,” Sherlock hummed approvingly and blindly felt around for his entomology book under the sofa. “It can be quite useful for determining the time of death of decomposing corpses.”

“Sherlock, there is no force in the world, not upstairs nor downstairs and certainly not in this room, sprawled on our sofa, that would ever convince me to let William examine any corpse for at least the next fifteen years. He’ll have enough traumatic experiences just by living with us,” John murmured and gave Sherlock a pointed look to emphasize his words.

“Then I’ll just bring the bugs home. Oh…Oh, brilliant! I’ll borrow a corpse from Bart’s and have it in the yard for a month. I’ll be able to collect samples of larvae in different moult stages as the corpse ages and make a collection for William. I’ll also need another one to store somewhere in nature, a park preferably, there are certainly different insect species than in the city…”

“Sherlock, we are _not_ having a corpse in the yard and much less in a park,” John said calmly, more amused than disgusted at his flatmate’s lunatic ideas.

“Where am I supposed to get the larvae from then?”

“You’ll just collect them as you go, or you can leave a steak somewhere and see what happens, but I’m certainly not explaining Mrs Hudson, our neighbours, the police, the media and Mycroft why our yard stinks like rotten meat and why they should be happy it’s not something else,” John said in a clear, blunt tone, customary for when an argument about an unsanitary experiment had reached the point of no-further-negotiation. Sherlock smirked in amusement, not taken aback from John’s refusal at all, and tried to cocoon a bit more comfortably on the sofa, but the struggle finally ended when he pulled a stuffed bear from behind him. He stared at the bear as if trying to make it disappear from the surface of the Earth with his poisonous look alone, but then the lines on his face softened and a smile sneaked on his lips as he embraced the stuffed animal and turned to his side, facing the living room.

“You know,” he murmured into the plush toy, “we could actually make this work.”

John incredulously stared at him for a long moment, but then just leisurely leaned back in his armchair, closed his eyes and let out a sigh that had way too much pleasure in it.

“John?”

“Shhh, quiet. Let me enjoy my private ‘ _I told you so’_ moment.”


End file.
